The Holy Fandom War
by Undying Soul98
Summary: Due to Zelretch's... helpful... influence, seven new combatants are dragged into the Holy Grail War. Now how will the Fifth Heavens Feel change when nearly everyone knows what is SUPPOSED to happen, yet it does not? Canon derails with an explosion, the Moonlit World looks on ominously and even more players sit down to add to the Gambit Pileup. Self Insert/ SI
1. Prologue: Something Interesting

**Prologue- Something Interesting**

**AN- Well, here's another fanfiction that I probably should have waited until I had finished something else to post, but oh well. This is flat out a Self Insert fic, but one with a twist, namely the _amount of them _that are involved. Prepare for canon to be derailed... but first, here's an obligatory prologue to set the scene. **

**Disclaimer: By the Word of God, I do not own this. Zelretch, Fate, Tsukihime and the whole of the Nasuverse belongs to Nasu. I am just writing this until he gets off his ass and makes Tsukihime II or the remake...**

On an empty hill in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nought but nature and the clear sky above, a large CRACK resounded. The sound of something shattering, then the hill was no longer empty as two figures strode through reality and appeared on the grassy land. They were in deep conversation, with the younger woman making exaggerated motions to accompany whatever speech she was presenting, while the other 'human' accepted the words with a slight smile etched onto his wrinkled face; he twirled his thick grey beard ominously.

"Why the hell are we here anyway!?" Raged the Japanese woman vocally as she kicked aside a tall plant that had the displeasure of being in her way. "After the last world we visited, you know, the one with _the Root damned cloth devouring tentacle monster_, I think I deserve a break!"

"Why would you say that?" Asked the male jokingly. "I thought that Tim was quite endearing."

"_You named the-_" She shook her head, causing her long black hair to blow lightly in the breeze. "No, of course you named the tentacle monster, you damned Troll." 

"Now, now. As a technical Vampire, I should probably take offence to that. At least call me Dead Apostle." 

"What I wouldn't give for a break." Another plant fell by her disgruntled feet.

"No rest for the wicked." The Magician joked. "This is how the Second works though; you can't learn unless we explore a lot of the multiverse and figure out everything works. Now, this reality is an interesting one. Found it while I was trying to rediscover that one world where everyone was a girl and where clothes had never been invented..."

"I'm glad you didn't find it, old man."

"Heh." He brushed aside the younger one's comment. "Anyhow, this isn't that spectacular of a world, but its good enough for us to have one of your lessons."

"Which is?" The student asked.

"I've already taught you all the basics: multi-dimensional refraction to create openings, how to draw things through these tears, travelling and world manipulation, hopping across time through the Kaleidoscope and even how to affect that which passes through it, as well as how to read the differences between worlds."

"Get on with it Zelretch." Urged the Magus briskly. "We already covered this. Multiple times."

"Yes, well as an old man I have the right to forget things." Zelretch offered as a half hearted excuse. "Anyway, today we'll look at differences in parallel universes. Try to read this worlds history."

"What about it?"

"Its similar to your world, Rin. Look for the differences, particularly the key players."

Rin stopped walking and focused intently to activate her Magic, and after muttering a few words in German she did as her instructor asked her to do: look for fundamental differences. She found several.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" She complained. "I've seen plenty more radical changes and odder worlds, so how are these few changes that significant?"

"That's the crux of the matter though; little things _are _important. Remember how we covered the Butterfly Effect? We can read a worlds history but ultimately things change. Stepping on a bug could drastically alter what happens in millions of years time."

"I know, I know! Which is why we never use our knowledge gained through the Second True Magic to try and affect history, because in the end it won't work like we want it to, and with every choice- no, with every quantum decision of every particle- multiple worlds are made anyway, so we aren't doing any lasting changes since all we do is steer the world down one specific path; the other paths come into being anyway." 

"Indeed." Zelretch inclined his head, acknowledging what she said with a rare smile. "The Kaleidoscope is always at work. With every moment we humans breathe we shoot towards a future of various probabilities and choices, and as True Magicians all we can do is observe these changes. So tell me what is unusual about this world in relation to yourself." 

"People are dead." Rin said bluntly. "Its not that special, but quite a few of the Masters in the Fifth Heavens Feel seem to have died prematurely before the war started: Shirou died in the fire, Ilya as a child during the altering process to her body, while this worlds me had a Magecraft accident in her youth that fried her mind. Not much; just means some different Masters will fight in the war."

"But look underneath the obvious." Said the old vampire. "Think of just how much change could occur purely through these few coincidental deaths that all seem to have stuck this timeline, and think of just how many potentials spring from this."

Rin looked and saw them, the potential worlds that could spawn from this one. "A lot. Even small things change a lot of things."

"Exactly!" The Wizard Marsall seemed pleased. "Small changes can escalate into large divergences, like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up momentum as it goes. Maybe Shinji Matou could grow a spine in this world? Perhaps Issei would find Caster out in the rain? Why, Sakura could even become a Magical Girl! This one changed thing is something very interesting to study, which is why I _love _dropping people not originally in a reality to see how they alter things." 

"Yeah, you seem to have a weird love of dropping normal people into different worlds. Didn't you once abandon me in a Ranma Half world early on in my training, then left me there until I had survived all the main arcs?"

"Yes." Admitted the Old Man of the Jewels without any shame. "You were an interesting Self Insert, particularly with your Tsundere personality and knowledge of the manga."

"Because you _forced _me to read it beforehand!" She practically shouted. "Its like you planned for me to use my knowledge of the series to try and manipulate things!" 

"That's because I did." He agreed, equally as shamelessly. "I love Self Inserts, and I was bored that day."

"Don't know why..." Muttered Rin, huffing slightly and rubbing her arms, as if remembering bruises that had long since faded.

"Well, I'll show you why." Concluded Zelretch. "Should be fun to watch anyway; a nice change to tormenting you."

"Thanks." Snorted the girl whom had once used the name Tohsaka sarcastically.

"Meh." He shrugged. "Try and look for another world. Any will do, but it has to be one where the events of this world are fictional."

"Eeekk!" Eeeked Rin as she glanced through the Kaleidoscope, noticing the multitude of different worlds where this was the case. "I'm in _an eroge!_"

"Yep. So now you learn your second lesson. 'Always expect that somewhere out there porn of you exists!'."

"And the sad thing is I can't even tell if that was a lesson you were _actually _trying to teach me or not." Rin grumbled.

"Meh." The Troll shrugged. "Concerning that eroge though,"

"Hang on, have YOU read PORN about me?" Rin finally caught on, and wasn't very happy at the implication.

"Not important- you aren't even the true heroine either. Pretty crappy route in my opinion; Heavens Feel was cooler, since my sword shows up, while Saber in Fate is too damned cute, while you're but a cut and paste Tsundere."

"So what now!" Rin barked irritably, ignoring the insults, having selected one of the worlds where 'Fate/Stay Night' existed.

"Just pull someone from there into this world. Who? Doesn't matter really, but try to choose someone whom has read the visual novel or watched the anime. Then set things up so that they're able to affect events. Ahah!" He had a moment of revelation. "Drop them into your house around your versions death or something."

"You're not making this easy." She complained, already searching the world in question for someone to fit the bill.

"You _are _my apprentice." The True Magician said smugly.

"True. Picked someone."

"Now pull him/her to this world. Drop the target anywhere, so long as it has to do with the Grail War."

"Fine." Rin grit her teeth and tugged hard, attempting to drag the girl in question into the world she was in.

"Hey Rin, Tim's back~"

"GWAH!" Rin spun, clutching her clothes to her at the thought of It being here, her Magic forgotten.

"I lied."

"Screw you..." Rin mumbled, turning back to her work, already knowing that it was a failure. "Now I messed this one up..."

"Oh well, should have been paying more attention." Rin succeeded in not pointing out he had deliberately distracted her. "Still, you only failed somewhat. You pulled her into your home, but messed up the timing and failed to grab her full form, only managing to pull her consciousness in-"

"It was an accident!" Rin insisted. "You distracted me! Its not my fault!"

"-But there was some displacement." Finished Zelretch.

"Now what?" Rin felt guilty for whatever had been displaced by her accident, but she was a trainee to a Magician. She couldn't afford to feel guilt during her lessons.

"Try again Rin." He urged. "That was an amateur mistake, and as my apprentice I can't accept that." 

"Fine..." Again Rin began the process of picking someone and pulling them in, only this time the old man tripped her up from behind.

"BWAAAHH!" She fell flat on her face, again the spell messed up. "YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!" She roared indignantly, a blush on her face as she pulled herself up.

"You messed up again." The Magic user noted idly, not finding his pupil's complaints relevant. "This time you FAILED even more spectacularly! Worse timing, no body, only spirit."

"Not my-"

"Terrible mistake." Zelretch waved his hand dramatically. "There. I have _some _mercy. Kid'll have a body due to me fiddling around a bit. Will be funny to see him babying around, that's for sure..."

"Don't tell me I need to do it AGAIN!" Zelretch opened his mouth to give a witty answer, but Rin knew this so cursed in German and began a third time, instead focussing on the body above all else this time...

"Put him in the Fuyuki Fire! Having a survivor of that is always fun!"

"Fine!" She cast her Magic upon finding the next target for her spell. Then, the elder moved- "Ahah!" Rin shouted in triumph, avoiding the shove her teacher was going to give her, so successfully managed to complete her Magic.

"Better." Conceded Zelretch. "This one turned out mostly right, you even managed to de-age him." 

"I know your tastes too well..." She explained sheepishly. "Not that I bothered learning your preferences or anything..."

"And now we wait..." He concluded ominously. "Give it a few years, and we can just watch the canon divergences pile up. With three of them, all of whom knowing the plot, one of them will _probably _do something interesting."

"Hang on a moment." Halted the apprentice. "If they're all these Self Inserts, won't their various actions all interfere with each other?"

"Aha!" Zeltretch snapped his fingers triumphantly. "Girl, you gave me an idea... I normally only bring _one_ person in... but due to your mess up-" 

"Hey!" 

"-we have three people in, all of whom have a chance of becoming a Master. Now, how about we get a full suit and make practically _every _Master in this war a Self Insert, because _come on_, it sounds good on paper." 

"Its stupid." Rin concluded. "From what I hear, you like Self Inserts because they're knowledge of the plot makes things interesting, but if _everyone _is like this, their knowledge is going to be obsolete pretty damn early on!" 

Zelretch let out a quick chortle. "Exactly! Imagine how confused everyone's going to be when everything's different? Besides which, it can't hurt. This would have happened in one verse _eventually_."

This time when Zelretch used his Magic, he had to actually put some effort into using it. He wasn't quite as young as he used to be, and this was tricky stuff. "There we are." He brushed his hands together with large amounts of satisfaction. "Now _that _is how you pull someone into another universe. Root, I did all sorts of stuff to the Inserts that'll make things interesting..."

"When you say the words 'interesting', it makes me want to run away and hide."

"Nonsense, Rin. Besides which, I pulled some cooler people in than you did, did some proper manipulation, a bit of genderbending here and there; its all cool. Now, let's sit back and watch the show as it unfolds. Perhaps you'll pick up some interesting stuff along the way..." Then the two were gone, leaving the hill barren once more, with the only sign of them having actually been there being a few patches where grass had been trampled on.

**AN- And thus this chapter is over. Ultimately, this fic is going to be my testament to the Self Insert genre (Hopefully), since I have improved much since I first began writing, and I feel that I know how best to write such a fic now. I had enough ideas seven fold for such a Self Insert story, so I decided to save time and stick them in one story, which was how this came about. I will be using a mixture of tropes and clichés, playing some straight and deconstructing others, while sticking firmly to my source material in some areas and expanding it in others to weave a story which will have great focus on character and plot. **

**Next chapter the first Arc will begin- Origins- and it will introduce the individual seven Self Inserts. To be honest, not one is better than the others in my opinion. They are all main characters, and they all stand an equal chance of winning the Grail War in the end and will have fairly even screen time until they start dropping like flies. So feel free to drop a review or leave a PM telling me what you think so far, or you can even ask about what is to come or if you have any particular queries. Undying Soul out.**


	2. Origins: Seven I

**Chapter 1- Seven I**

**AN- Well, this is the first official chapter. The seven Self Inserts will be introduced over the course of this and the next chapter, allowing you the audience to get a basic knowledge of who the protagonists of this story are, what their basic character is, and a small insight into what role they'll play in the story. Again I reiterate that there isn't a single main character; they are all important, and will all get development and screentime in this story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the setting of the Nasuverse or the canon characters that will make appearances, nor do I own the franchises of whatever references I make. All I own are the original characters I introduce in this story.**

From a young age, I have always been a scared person. You could point out a phobia and I would probably have it. Snakes, spiders, heights: there were few things that failed to make me cry out to my mum in the night and demand that the bug that was bothering me be dealt with. Even as I got older, this fear seemed to follow me wherever I went. I never seemed to get over my crippling dislike for most things capable of rendering harm to me, small or large, and I think that the events when I was eight only made this fear large.

'What happened?' many people would ask, but honestly, I don't like to talk about it. After all, its not very often that your parents die. Nothing particularly special, just a car crash. A truck collided with our Jaguar and threw our battered piece of metal half way across the street, or at least that had been what it had felt like at the time to my small, eight year old self. It was an accident, and the truck driver had been very apologetic about what had happened, but the fact remained: I was alone in the world. My mum had cracked her head against the glass window and had her body crushed when the car practically imploded, while my dad ended up dying on the way to the hospital.

I had escaped unharmed, luckily. Rather, it was unlucky, since I didn't have a mum or dad to take away the creepy crawlies anymore.

Life carried on though, as it always did. I moved in with my grandma, and while the accident left no physical marks, the emotional wounds ran deep. Even the things that _didn't _openly go out of their way to could kill you, and my paranoia grew three times that day.

So I became a recluse. I played video games when I wasn't at school, surfed the internet and even began to watch anime. I liked the types of series where people could take serious injuries- like getting blown up with a mine, or punched into the stratosphere with a Megaton Punch- and come out unharmed, the attack played off for laughs. I watched other series though, more serious ones. It was hard not to become a nerd without confronting plenty of 'must watch/play!' things that don't involve things like character death, and I suppose that the screen between us was enough of a deterrent for me to stomach it. That shit happened to them, _not _to me, so it was perfectly fine. I was safe at home, looked after by my over protective grandma, and such things couldn't touch me.

Which was why when events like what occur in anime's happened, I was pretty damn annoyed.

It had started shortly after I had finished my A Levels (When I got an A in Maths, a B in Physics and Chemistry, and a C in ICT), when I had followed in my parents footsteps and died.

Let me tell you, dying is hard. You don't appreciate the blood pumping through your veins, or the synapses and electrical impulses that make you up, or all the other things that make up your human body until you loose them and become an ex-member of the Being Alive Club.

Ironically, I was hit by a bus when I crossed the road. Another way that I took after my parents, my method of death. From all my years of Physics, I could tell you, buses pick up a whole lot of momentum and carry a whole lot of force, and it had been travelling too damn quickly.

One moment I was alive, the next I was slipping away, blood drowning my lungs. Then I died, and all my fears had been for nothing. The world went dark, and I was scared. Truly terrified. I didn't want to die, nobody does. One fear I had above all others was of the dark, and of what was in it...

But it was what came afterwards that was the worst. Fire. A world of writhing flames and dancing sparks, maliciously tormenting the urban sprawl. Everything seemed to loom above me, and for a moment I blinked, not knowing if I was conscious or dreaming, wondering if I was in hell, or if my death had been a dream, or if I was even alive. My worries on my mortality went out of this window. It didn't matter if this was real or not, or if this was hell or just a dream. Those flames looked nasty, and I could feel the heat around me, parching my throat and already beginning to make my skin sweat and burn.

So I ran, as fast as my uncontrollable body could take me, trying to avoid looking at the raging element destroying all that crossed it, and trying to stop the pounding of my heart. I think I failed, but horror wasn't freezing me dead in my tracks, only propelling me on faster, reminding me that _I had to run the hell away!_

I fled the fire, and along the way I saw others try too. I saw people die. Dear god, I saw them DIE! Saw their life snuffed out of them like a dying ember, their lives over in a flash of heat and terrible, terrible burning!

Lovers killed in one another's embrace; the religious wiped out as they prayed; the brave scorched as they rushed into the blaze to save another. All died, but not me. I was stubborn, and I was scared. There were a few close ones where the burning death almost reached me, but it always fell short. My slow pace was barely able to outmatch it, my mind numbing panic narrowly allowing me to avoid acknowledging how everybody else was dying and how I was choosing to live instead of trying to help someone else, just like those people that arrogantly threw themselves back into the death and destruction, believing that they could save another.

Hell yeah I was picking myself! Not like I could do anything to help them anyway, and my own fear was much more important. So while their screams seemed to accuse me, I ignored the voices in favour of living.

I fell. Maybe I tripped. Maybe I was tired. Perhaps the flames had gotten me. Who knows? I fell though, and then I was certain I was going to die-

Up until _he_ came anyway. A man in a trench coat. He brought light and peace and saved me from the fear that had been consuming me, and I think I fell unconscious after the anguish of dying once and nearly dying a second time was over.

I wasn't actually that surprised once all the pieces fell into place. Dead or not, it mattered little once I woke up in a white room surrounded by soft sheets. I was_ alive! _I could breathe and talk and look, and that was good enough. It didn't matter why or how!

Then I figured it all out once the man that had rescued me entered my hospital room. I knew that man. I hadn't ever met him, but I knew him. I had seen him, once, and I could remember his identity as if it was my own. As funny as it was, I think I had watched him on the TV. Once he spoke, I knew my hunch to be right. His name was Kiritsugu Emiya.

Yes, _that _Kiritsugu, the one from the Fate franchise. Somehow, death had not been the end. This was still my body; I hadn't reincarnated or anything like that, but it was undeniable that someone or something, some weird cosmic force, had plucked me from my own world and dropped me here- into this fire- for some unknown reason. And then I wasn't dead anymore. And much to my growing horror, I had realised that something terrible had happened.

Kiritsugu had pulled someone from the Fuyuki Fire- someone who by all rights should have died- but it was the _wrong bloody _person! Someone in the universe had a sick sense of humour, because if _I _of all people had been drafted in as Shirou's replacement, then Fuyuki was probably doomed.

"What is your name?"

"My name," I told the Magus quietly as I had to push down the rising panic inside me back down. "Is Farrin. Just Farrin."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Owwwws..." I murmured, crying out as I came to in an unfamiliar room, with a pounding headache. "What did I do last night?"

Oh yeahs! I got together with a few of my friends and we had all decided that it would be a fun idea to drink copious amounts of beer until most of us threw up. Not me. Nopes, of course not. I'm much to ladylike to ruin a potted plant in such a fashion... besides which, Anna was probably worse. Bad drinker. I for one may not be able to hold my liqueur, but at least I'm a sleepy drunk and not a clingy one.

Moving on, my head still feels like a brass orchestra came a marchin' in and began to play the Flight of the Valkyries. I could swear that the music was still playing...

No, there really was music playing. A droning, blaring noise. "Shurrup!" I roared, shifting on the hard surface I was sprawled on, trying to find the noise without my sight, 'cos my eyes weren't very happy with me.

Paper, chalk, a rock, more paper... odd stuff to find on the floor (Not to self, gotta hit Sophie for not moving me from her floor to somewhere actually sleepable!), but oh well, STUPID NOISE!

"BWAH!" Shifted around too quickly and Mrs Headache came back like a bitch. "Bitch!" In all fairness, she was. God, I haven't been this hungover since the great comic con of 09...

THE DAMNED NOISE IS STILL THERE!

"That. Is. It." I hissed, wincing as I attempted to stagger to my feet, but only failed and fell back to the floor. I must've been reeeaaally drunk! I feel like I have pins and needles everywhere (And I means it!) and my body isn't responding like it should. "Gonna. Burn. This. Racket!"

I checked out my surroundings closely from the spot on my arse (And what a lovely arse I have, might I arrogantly state), and wondered at just where I was. "Pretty sure this ain't's Sophie's place..." Unless she had a secret basement or something, because I was definitely underground. I mean, this place was creepy! It was lit by candles and everything and OMG! Is THAT a satanic circle or something! It has squiggles and stuff, so probably! Does this mean Sophie's a Satanist!? No, Anna was a more likely Satanist. Bitch.

"There it is!" It was an alarm clock of all things, right next to the skull... yes... there was a skull. I hopes it isn't real... and... its turned off. Much to my relief. I think my own skull was gonna split open from migraine alone if I hadn't shut it up. "What sort of idiot sets an alarm this early!?" It was, like, six o' clock, which is like the middle of the night to me. I'm so gonna find Sophie, give her a wallop, then sleep this headache off. Once I finish nosing about that is. Its creepy, but this place has a _skull! _That IS pretty cool!

Wow, I really am disorientated. I also seem to have changed clothes, though I'm not worrying about that, and I still feel funny even with the head pounding starting to vanish.

"OOOOOHHHSSS!" There were jewels! Like, proper jewels! Rubies, sapphires and some of those green ones too! Though mostly red un's. "Daaaammmn girl, she's been holding out on me!"

Other stuff. Lots of books, in piles, shelves and otherwise. They all had odd sounding science-y names, which I couldn't figure out since I'd dropped sciences ages back to focus on arts and graphics. A few occult things too, and from what I could see of the pages that were scattered across the cold floor when I bothered to bend down (On legs that felt oddly small), they too were on occult topics, and involved things like circles, blood and other stuff.

Nexts thing! Contraptions! "Oooppsss..." Think I broke one. Okay gal, leave the complex, delicate, expensive stuff alone. Lets get on with it and just leave this basement...

The door swung open anticlimactically once I had scaled the stairs, almost falling down them twice due to the candle lit room being quite dark, but then I was through, and just wowzas!

It was fancier than any of mine or the others house, I could be sure of that. I lived in a dorm for gods sake, while Sophie was the only one of us to have a proper house to herself (Something to do with grandma's and inheritance)- shiny thing!

I swear, I REALLY want to know what we did last night now. Must've gone to a university party that went pear shaped up, because this is the sort of house a rich, posh boy'd have and-

-Nearly fell over again. God, I thought you were supposed to be able to walk in a straight line _better _when you weren't gurgling whiskey like it was going out of fashion...

Back on topic, mind! Facts aren't adding up though. If it was a party, where's the mess? Believe me, you don't have a part without a mess. Tisn't done! And where was everyone else? They should have heard my cursing by now...

I feel like an extra from the Hangover...

Next room, we can marvel at the décor later.

A hallway, and over there's a full length, ornate mirror. Lets see just how messy my bed (Floor) hair is...

"WAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" I didn't even bother catching myself from falling this time. That- well- that wasn't me! I looked again. Yep, still not me. I screamed again.

The reason why I was in this house, why I felt so odd, why there was so much occultic stuff; _it all made sense now! _

No, scratch that. None of it made sense. The face I had seen in the full body mirror wasn't my own, nor was the form that I was wearing. Too young for one thing, wrong shaped face, wrong hair colour.

The gormless mug glaring back at me could only be identified as a cuter/younger version of everyone's favourite tsundere: Rin Tohsaka!

XXXXXXXXXX

Blood runs thicker than water, but memory is the thickest of them all. Blood is a bond that ties you to the lives of others, those whom you call 'family' and name you 'family' in return, so this bond often motivates you to act. However, it's your memories that make you up as a person, and its these thoughts that ultimately determine what actions you choose.

In another world, Aodh Fraga McRemitz and his wife Fiona Fraga McRemitz would have brought a child named Bazett into the world, whom would have one day become an Enforcer for the Clock Tower and become a Master in the Holy Grail War.

Somewhere else, Kieran Fraga McRemitz was born in her place, and no doubt he too would live an interesting life.

But within this world, Kieran was not born with just blood ties, but a connection to a former life. In short, while I may be named Kieran, and the world knows me only as the son of a successful pair of mages in the Fraga clan, I know the truth. This is my second life. A second chance. No matter what, the person I was before I reincarnated will always be a part of whom I am.

And so it was almost natural that from the day I figured out that I was in the fictional universe of the Nasuverse (Due to divine Glitch, a trolling God or accident- who cares?) I would have a agenda. That my path would already be decided before my parents or anyone else had a chance to shape me.

I am my own person. My goal is my own. My motivation my secret to keep.

You see, what I desire is power. Not physical power, or political power, or even mental power. What I _need _is Power. Notice the capitalisation.

A selfish goal, yes, but humans are selfish. But is wrong that I want to live? That I want to stand out among the rest? Or that I dream to be at the top of the food chain?

I'm in the Nausverse. Its a World of Badass, where literally everyone is is capable of kicking ass and there are so many different things out there capable of killing you.

Being born into a family of Mages, I was taught from a young age what these threats are, while this association ensured that even if for some _odd reason _I decided to turn my back from these dangers I would be unable to. I am a part of this danger, whether I want to or not.

I refuse to be Prey though. If this is a world of Badasses, then I'll just have to become one then, won't I?

Here Magecraft allows you to defy the Logic of the world, Dead Apostles are the apex of strength, True Magician's can level mountains, and just out of sight Spirits and other Impossible entities lurk.

So I said to myself, 'I've got to get me's some of that'.

At two, after I had gone through all the basic stages of babyhood until it was reasonably acceptable to be able to start talking and learning, I immediately pestered my parents to try and get me started down the path of a Magus. That was the first step- learn Magecraft. Its the minimum anyone in this world would need to be able to survive.

But I didn't want to survive. I needed to be much stronger than that to achieve my goal.

So with all my time and effort I threw myself into my studies. I read every book, I opened my Circuits as early as possible (I ended up with 38 Rank A Circuits- which was natural for someone born from a line of Magi that had descended from those in the Age of Gods), and practised opening and closing my Circuits until by the age of five I was already able to access and use 18 of them- a number truly unusual for someone as young as myself.

The Fraga clan itself was a collection of Magi all living in the same Irish coastal town and who shared common descent and bloodline. Unlike most Magi families, our goal was not the advancement of our craft and the pursuit of the Root (The spiral from which all in the world originated from) but to preserve the knowledge that the Gods themselves had shared with our ancestors. Commitment to the Clan came first, and loyalty was expected and enforced. This plus the way that the Fraga shared knowledge amongst their ranks so widely led to the Fraga being disliked by the Mages Association rather than supported as a Ancient family like ourselves should be.

But enough of clan history- this was good for me. There was always someone willing to teach me, and before long I was even brought to the Runes expert in our Clan to be taught the basics of the Runecraft.

I was considered without doubt to be a prodigy. I far exceeded the performance of all of the other Clan children around my age, and was even better than some whom were older than me. My parents were proud of just how quickly I was able to pick up knowledge with my adult like ability to process information, and under their encouragement my Magical skills grew.

The first time I was able to set something on fire purely through inscribing a Rune into a surface and powering it with my Magic, I let out a rare laugh and smile.

_'Just another step closer.'_

Being able to give the laws of physics the middle finger was fun and all, but it was only a side course. The main dish of my research focussed on those areas that interested me much more.

The Greater Magics. The stronger beings. The deadlier spells. And at eight I was finally given access to the beginnings of the first of many things I truly lusted over in my quest for Strength- the foundation for creating my own Noble Phantasm, one born from the bloodline I carry in my Veins. Fragarach, the Gouging Sword of the War God.

This always leads back to what I desire. It _always _ties back to becoming more powerful than everyone else.

That's what I never got. The Nasuverse is filled with such artefacts and powers that one could become practically invincible if only they had the will to reach out and grasp it, so come so few people actually have the ambition to become as strong as this universe allows you to? And I _did _have the will. While I wanted power, there are certain avenues I could travel and would travel down. Become an Enforcer. Gain a Noble Phantasm. Obtain a pair of Mystic Eyes. Master the art of Runecraft.

But why settle for second best? Why settle for average in this world of Monsters in human flesh?

In the Nasuverse there are two main stories. The world of Fate, where Heroic Spirits are summoned within a vast ritual to do battle for the Holy Grail, and Tsukihime, the moonlit night where Dead Apostles and True Ancestors stand tall.

So if I am going to live in this world, I'm going to go Big or go Bust, and become the strongest of both sides. For the pursuit of power, I'll do everything that I have to, no matter how distasteful. While selfish, my survival is more important.

I'll become a Dead Apostle, and by discarding my Humanity I'll gain so much potential Power its unreal. One way or another, I'm going to become a creature that can reverse TIME ITSELF to recover from injuries, and is able to distort reality through sheer Inhuman perception of the world. The 27 strongest of the Apostles are known as the Ancestors, and it is those that are the true threats out there that I must stand as strong as.

My counterpart, Bazett, took part in the Heavens Feel, and so will I. I will learn everything I can, and then I'll summon a Hero to fight by my side. I will slaughter the competition, and as I stand before that tainted chalice I will make my wish. I'll obtain something that is spoken of reverently amongst all Mages, a power that is considered more monstrous than even the act of becoming this worlds equivalent to a Vampire. I _will _obtain the Heavens Feel, the Third True Sorcery.

These are the two goals I strive towards. To become so fucking overpowered that the world itself can't possibly stand against me. I'll become one of the predators that are on the level of the Twenty Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors, if not higher. Because with the body of an Apostle and the skills that will naturally accompany it once I've had a few centuries as one and with the Magic governing the manifestation of the Soul, I could truly be considered a foe formidable enough to survive against the higher level threats in this world. Only then will I able to truly live- when I can damn well kill anything in this world that can threaten me.

"You're going to do great things one day, my son." Encouraged my mother (A caring women whom perhaps lacked the ruthless streak that is encouraged amongst Magi) as she hugged me tightly as myself, father and her celebrated my ninth birthday quietly in our home. "I just know it, Kieran."

"I know, mother." I told her with a smile. Because she had no fucking idea just how right she was. That quote from Harry Potter fluttered through my mind 'After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things- terrible, yes, but great'. To make an omelette, you need to crack eggs, and likewise in the path to greatness I am certain that I too will do terrible, terrible things.

XXXXXXXXXX

Life is full of boxes, both metaphorical and literal. I'm used to boxes. I see them wherever I go. When myself or my mum has to fill in one of the multiple medical forms that need to be done regularly, all I can see is the tiny checkboxes, and just what they represent.

My room is another box (Or maybe a prison cell). A nicely decorated box, sure, one plastered with a multitude of anime and video game posters, but a box never the less. I can't really leave and I feel like I'm always restricted, because I am. As much as I love my mum, she's really overprotective, especially since the accident happened. I can barely wheel myself outside without her breathing over my shoulder. I have no privacy from the moment I leave my little box, so I normally stay in there.

And the figurative boxes are worse. My life is trapped in a box, unable to go beyond the boundary of the walls- limited. There are so many things that I can't do and will never be able to accomplish even if I really wanted to, and it sucks, but that's just how it is. I'm _limited_. Not broken, handicapped or any other way you want to say it. I'm just like I was before I fell, just more _limited. _I'm always _trapped_. Yeah, that's the word for it. Trapped. From the moment that I broke my legs and had my lower body become forever unresponsive, I felt trapped day in and day out. I loved to move around and be independent, and while I was never sporty, I would sell my soul to the devil just to be able to play a game of football.

While I might be dissatisfied with the last four years of my life where I have been unable to have the simple pleasure of walking, I _can_ say that I am happy. Melancholic sometimes, and in my dreams I can _almost _imagine the phantom sensation of sand running past my toes, but happy. Happy in how I had made the best of the situation ( taking advantage of my lack of mobility to watch plenty of films/anime and play many games), and resolved on how even if I_ wanted _to walk, I never would.

"_Or will you?" _The sudden voice made me shoot up in surprise from my bed. It was dark, too late to really do anything, but too early to sleep, so I was unfortunately in that half awake sort of mindset when the words were projected into my mind, bypassing things as trivial as ears. _"Are you so sure about that?"_

I looked around in the semi-dark, searching for wherever the voice could have possibly originated from. There was no one there, aside from the various figures from nerd culture looming down at me from the grey walls. "Pardon?" I asked the comfortable darkness, not really sure that I wasn't imagining the voice.

"_What would you give up to have sensation returned to your frail lower form? Just what would you be willing to sacrifice, to pay?"_

That time I was sure. The message didn't come from anywhere around me, but from inside me. It was almost like the sound was vibrating through my whole body. "Who are you?" I demanded, feeling a bit silly for talking back to the voice I had probably conjured up to keep myself company.

"_I ask of you, what are you willing to loose to gain much?"_

"How are you doing this?"

"_Do you wish to make a contract?"_

"Shut up!" I barked into the darkness, trying to squash the slight hint of hope that had blossomed within me. Things like this don't happen. End of. And in particular, when a mysterious voice asks you to make a contract, you should normally run away screaming from whatever cute, fluffy animal is offering you candy. "Who do you take me for, Faust?"

"_Rejoice, for I can grant your wish." _The voice said with... irritation? Yeah, sounds like the voice is getting annoyed.

"Like hell." I whispered, suddenly very conscious of how my mum was still in the bungalow we share together, and that this wasn't the sort of thing I wanted her to walk in on: me cracking up and talking to the walls. "My legs are mangled, and I have _frigging _spinal damage. My mum took me to all kinds of experts; they all told me that I would never walk again." 

"_Will you stay here forever, trapped in your little 'box'?" _The voice mocked. _"Or will you stand up, and walk out of the cage you have forged..."_

My throat was dry and I was breaking out in sweat. My God, I was _actually _starting to consider what the freaky voice was saying, wasn't I? "What- what is your price." I finally asked, managing to croak out my response, my mind already aglow with possibilities.

With legs I could climb up stairs unhindered; we could live in an actual house. With legs I could actually go around society without everyone treating me like a dog, pitying me or giving me special treatment, further shoving me into social boxes. With legs I could be _free _to just start walking, and then continue walking until my feet fall off, I die, or I choose to stop. I could-

No- practicality first. Even if this voice could do the impossible, all contracts go both way. As mum always says, 'There is always a price. Nothing in life is free, my son.'.

"_The price is for you to live."_

"Wha-"

"_Do what you want with the life I give you; just make things interesting, and I will happily give you the legs you want, and much more..."_

A price of living? How vague, does this mean that its free? No, there's ALWAYS a cost, and just because I can't see it, doesn't mean that there isn't one.

But even so, it would be so tempting to just say 'sure'. I mean, it couldn't hurt. Its not like anything will really happen. Its more than likely that I'm loosing my mind than it is that some sort of supernatural force is talking to me.

"Okay." I said, at long last, after contemplating some more in the darkness of my box. "Beam me up, Scotty, or whatever it is you need to do."

"_So do we have a deal?" _The voice responded eagerly.

"Yes, Mr Voice. We have a deal." A loud laugh began to rise in volume, and a crackling sound began to strike me in the same way that the voice communicated. _Something _was happening!

"_Excellent..." _It decided. _"How interesting..." _

A sudden feeling of weightlessness as the world faded to white around me, my body falling limp around me as my awareness expanded. I could see void, a world of white- no, lack of colour, not white- then beyond the void there was _something_. I don't know what, its impossibly inhuman. Like a God. I couldn't comprehend it, even with my new state of awareness. I wanted to cross the void and visit that place of impossibility, but something inside me instinctively knew that if I went looking for a God I wouldn't come back, and that I would join whatever was _there_. This was a place of origin, I could tell that much. I could practically feel knowledge and understanding bleed into me just by standing here. This was _the _Origin, or as close as one could go to where all comes from before they too are reduced to their roots.

Then a lurch as I was pulled in a direction that can't be sensed in three dimensions. Pins and needles in a place I hadn't ever felt before, but was so damn familiar, like a face that you knew as a kid but couldn't quite recall as you met fifteen years on...

To the crescendo of impossible music, in a world that shouldn't exist, as I was pulled by a force similar to gravity but so much different, I smiled.

Then I stepped forwards- out of my little box- and into the vast, wide yonder.

**AN- So those were the first four Self Inserts who will play a key role in the story. Each of those that appear before the Grail War starts will have a chapter or two of their own later before the war starts where I explain what shenanigans they get up to before the actual story starts with the war, where I will go further into detail on their motivations, goals, ambitions and armaments that they will be using for the war.**

**Next chapter we'll meet the final three characters, then after that we'll have a bunch of pre-war chapters to develop some of the characters (Maybe one or two per Insert), then we'll dive head first into the madness which will be the Fifth Holy Grail War. It will be excellent. Things will explode.**

**So if you have any comments, thoughts or opinion on what I've done so far, feel free to leave a review. Hell, if you have a question you could even PM or drop it into the review box as well while you are at it. Undying Soul out.**


	3. Origins: Seven II

**Chapter 2- Seven II**

**AN- Sorry for the long wait- blame it on exams, real life and other fics- but have no fear, the next one should be quicker.**

**Now here are the last three Self Inserts who will play a role, and this should hopefully be the last chapter of major exposition. Next chapter, things should start getting interesting as we begin to explore the past of each Insert- note, these _are _just brief introductions, so naturally there is more to them just what is shown in the small intros. Again, viewer discretion advised. Some stuff this chapter is dark, because fundamentally sometimes things suck for people, while the Nasuverse itself is a pretty dark universe to live in. Anyhow, enjoy. **

**Disclaimer: This story is brought to you by the love child of the Self Insert Genre and Kinoko Nasu, so lets all give it up for the man in question for giving us stuff like Tsukihime and Fate Stay Night. Then lets throw tomatoes at him for not getting off his ass for the Tsukihime remake and giving us the Satsuki route...**

From the moment I was born, emerging from the warm, intoxicating darkness and being tugged away from the comforting connection with the one that had birthed me, even as I was held in my 'mothers' arms and shushed to sleep in a way that only a mother can do, I remembered whom I had used to be. I could recall that which came before this; I knew that once upon a time before I had been given the name Hikaru, I had been another. This had not been the first time I had lived. Call it what you will, but the Hindu's had been dead right about Reincarnation.

Although it seems like the World is a buggy computer, because my memories sure as hell hadn't been wiped.

Quite honestly, as I had been nursed to sleep after what could have been weeks later (When my eyes were only just starting to see things that weren't blurs), I wished that I had been blanked. How refreshing it would be to have a fresh start, a life without burdens and a chance to be happy and live a good, normal, _happy _life.

Hah! What a joke. The woman (I refused to call her mom) spoke another language, but I had been able to listen carefully and figure out that she had been calling me Hikaru, that it was now my new name. Its funny though. Later when I knew enough of Japanese, I could tell what the name stood for. Light, to shine. Again, I laugh. What a cosmic joke! A fresh baby boy named after light, yet already at the grand age of two weeks old I was tainted and corrupt. I was the furthest thing from Light, after the first life I had led I was closer to Dark.

Life had been hard for me, in my old life. I was unhappy and alone for most of it, with my only family being my dad and my brother. Mom left when I was too young to remember anything aside from the light touch of kisses upon my forehead; she abandoned me and Brandon and Dad and went off with another bloke, or so dad used to tell me as he hit me in his regular drunker stupors. Dad was just as bad, all of his goodness drained away like a spilled can of Fosters once she had gone, and he had quickly buried himself in his drink.

I think I hated him, in retrospect. He was my father, a person whom was supposed to command absolute respect and admiration from his charges, yet all I could remember about him were the bad times. All the punches, hits, strikes, blows and insults were all I could recall, never that one time where he had pitied me and got me an ice cream after he had broken my tooth and taken me to the hospital on a warm day, or when he had once told me proudly that I had my mothers eyes.

No, never then. I hated him, I damn well hated the child beating drunkard.

My brother was no better. While I had my mothers eyes, Brandon had inherited more from my fathers side of the family, and had a terrible temper and an willingness to hurt just as much as dad did. Dad did it because I reminded him of who he had lost and often apologised later when he was sober (Half heartedly, often reminding me as he did so that if he wasn't there I'd be on the streets or worse), while Brandon did it because he wanted to, could do it, and because he liked having power over others. He was the sort of messed up kid who used a magnifying glass to burn ants and melt plastic action figures.

The funny thing about him though, was that he was actually pretty normal in some cases. I had no idea how he had scraped together the funds, whether he had stolen it, won it off one of his friends, or if he had put some of his money from working at McDonalds (That hadn't been confiscated by Dad for 'living fees') aside, but he had lots of manga. It seems silly. Bullies don't read, but the fact remained that he enjoyed them and had lots of them. When he was at home he was always reading one, though he had refused to let me enjoy them or even tell me about them early on.

The point of where this anecdote is going, is that to me this was the one bit of normality in our dysfunctional family. I guess that in my ten year old mind- still innocent to some of the darkest truths of the world- I saw those manga as a lifeline. They represented a dream that maybe our family too could be as normal as a kid reading manga. So one day, I decided to read some stuff while Brandon was out. It was called Fate/Stay Night, and was pretty odd. It had all sorts of strange stuff like wizards and heroes, but I lapped it up as I flicked through the series of manga, because it _was _a link to my brother, and I savoured it.

Then he came home, and he quickly taught me to never go through his stuff again. That was the day that the last of my childish innocence was snuffed prematurely out.

I remembered that manga, even though I had only skimmed through it, barely reading and only looking at the pictures. I remembered it even if I never went back to try and read them again. I remembered Fate/Stay Night, and I remembered some of the things within it: Magi and Spirits, Grails and Wars, Tohsaka's, Emiya and Matou's. I remembered.

So anyway, as anyone would be in this kind of domestic life, I grew up quite unhappy. I couldn't even have many friends either, because what sort of a friend would refuse to invite people round to their house because he was scared that his dad would be in one of his moods and would hurt someone who really would tell the police? What sort of friend was someone that refused to do P.E because of the far too frequent bruises that he sported, in case somebody told the relevant authorities? What sort of a friend would I really be?

I was always lacking in something. Always. Others had a loving mother, an attentive father and affectionate siblings. I didn't. Mom abandoned me, Dad gives me the wrong sort of attention and my brother hated my presence. Others had new clothes and toys to play with, and enjoyed their carefree lives with all of their wonderful 'friends'. I couldn't. Dad never had much money lying about that wasn't put aside for his expensive hobby, and the one time I tried to go behind his back for the cash was enough to teach me too never do that again.

And I was willing to deal with this; I always had. I was used to feeling this constant absence from the moment mom had abandoned me. I might hate dad, but he _was _my dad. He might have been a terrible father and an asshole, but I didn't want to put him behind bars. No, I owed him that much. I had decided that I'd move out as soon as I reached eighteen and had gotten any qualifications and a job of some sort, and would never look back.

But that chance never happened. I didn't make it past seventeen; victim to one too many cases of domestic abuse. The _stairs _of all things were my downfall, pushed down by my inebriated father, while the edge of the table displaying a potted plant was the murder weapon.

Anyway, all of this kept on replaying in mind, even after my 'rebirth'. How could someone leave the memories of such a life behind? The Gods were truly assholes if they got a sick pleasure out of letting them torment me even after I had died.

So as that women kept on rocking me to sleep every night, as she smiled at me and spoke tenderly in a foreign language, as she carried me around while I cried out my frustration and soothed me with songs and unwanted kisses, I remembered. And I still knew that something was missing, like it always was.

Absence had always been a part of my old life, and this absence continued to hinder me long after my years as a babe...

XXXXXXXXXX

I swear, people are ignoring me! I mean, I'm on stage and stuff, but I've been totally overshadowed by that other cosplayer! Okay, so when I entered the costume contest, I hadn't really been doing it to win, but because I love to be noticed. Even if it was just the occasional person who had come up to me and complemented my outfit, I would have been happy, but since I decided to enter the contest in the end, I actually wanted to get the recognition I deserve!

I got second place, and that's cool and all, but since I got ssooooo close, I should have won! While admittedly the other girl's character was more popular, and she _did _have a nice outfit of Arturia Pendragon, it was totally shop bought! Besides which, my Madoka Magica Mami cosplay was much more realistic! At least _my _clothing wasn't made out of tinfoil!

I was authentic, and I made everything _exactly _right! I'm sure that other girl has no idea just how hard it is to hand make clothes. Seriously, it took me WEEKS to make this outfit! I did it by myself, with no outside help, sewing all of the material by hand, and I even dyed and cut my hair for this to work! My hair does. Not. Curl. I literally spent TWO hours getting that perfect drill like hair! I should just be happy that I was busty enough already to make Mami's Mammies work without additional actions...

Admittedly Daddy has so much money just lying about that I could've just bought something cool- its not like money's ever a problem, and he always buys me whatever I want, but still! Despite being loaded, I still went out of my way to make it myself, and since I put the time in that means I should have DOUBLE the reason to win!

Why. Aren't. They. Looking. At me? My cosplay is awesome, so how come they're oh so focussed on that other girl just because she's everyone's favourite Saber-Chwan?

"Now, give a round of applause to our cosplay contest winner!" Announced the commentator presenting the contest. Applause broke out in the audience for the magnificent _winner. _I sighed, then put my happy face back on. If I wanted people to look at me, looking glum would only be worse! So I'll smile and look happy. At least _I _know that mine was better. And I guess it would be nice to get out of these clothes soon...

At last, the applause died down and the three of us left the stage; people began to drift away from the musty auditorium drenched in the sweat of a thousand anime fans and sample the rest of the convention now that the contest was over. Smiling gently, I brushed off the compliments I got from random people. It was nice and to be expected, but hearing them say 'well done for getting SECOND' just made me more furious that the top position had been denied me.

"Hey, you did well." Said my friend, Abigail, as she rushed over to where we agreed to meet.

"Mou~" I sighed, tugging at my dress. "It was okay I guess. Just a shame that after putting this damned thing on, I didn't come out on top."

"If it makes you feel better, you were _my _number one." She replied with a smile. Actually, it did make me feel better. Her opinion meant more than the stupid sheep who voted, after all.

"Did you get the things I wanted?" I asked, my perpetual smile back in place on my face.

"Sure." She gestured down to the collection of plastic bags in her hands, ruffled through them to pick out the three that belonged to me (One that I had before the event and that I had asked her to keep a hold off while I was off getting ready, the other two having been bought recently), and handed them over with a beam.

"Thanks!" I exclaimed, practically pulling it out of her grip. I checked the contents, and everything was there. "It would have been a pain if I missed out any of the deals since I was getting ready..."

"Yeah, but you're loaded, _remember_." Abigail reminded. "Its not like the reduced prices actually matter to you."

"But its the _feeling _of going for the bargain. Plus, the good stuff could've been taken, and its not the same buying online."

Abigail giggled. "You got me there."

"So where now?" I asked, looping the bags around one hand so I wouldn't drop them.

"Maybe floor two?" My best friend suggested. "I heard that there's a talk going on upstairs!"

"Sure! Lets go!" I enthusiastically grabbed her hand with my own, and the two of us practically sprinted to the stairs and up them, uncaring of the stares of the people we shoved out the way in the process.

Then, just as we were clearing the turning leading up to the next floor, my foot slipped. Like, have you ever tripped _upwards_? Its embarrassing, but its totally happened to people before, and it had happened to me too. So when my foot slid and the other wasn't in position to support me, I began to fall backwards.

As I fell, my mind registered some specific things: Abigail looking back in worry as I fell and my hand slipped from her own, the sight of the floor I was going to land on, my bags still tightly wrapped around one hand and the knowledge that I was _probably _giving anyone below me on the stairs a _really _good panty shot.

I shut my eyes, anticipating the pain I was going to feel in moments.

I fell, and fell, but I didn't hit the floor. At the moment I thought I'd feel it, I didn't, instead sliding _through _something. Rather, I think I did, but I might've blanked out a little, because the sound of the auditorium was gone.

Then, I finally hit the ground with an inelegant "Ooof!"

My knees were hurting where I'd landed, and I think I had tears on the edge of my vision, but nobody laughed.

"And who the Root are you supposed to be?" Asked an irritated voice.

"Who the hell do you think?" I hissed back. No, calm down girl... happy face, happy face, happy face... he's clearly just asking who I was cosplaying as , though it felt really insensitive considering I had just fallen down the stairs. Abigail was probably running down to help me up now...

"I repeat- who are _you _supposed to be?" Probably just a jealous anime noob. Yeah, he just doesn't know anything! "Obviously, I'm Mami." I said, wiping my eyes so I could see again, though oddly my vision was still obscured by some sort of smoke.

"Hmmph!" The other person said in disgust. "You don't look like an Assassin."

"Of course not." I 'kindly' told him. "I _am _a Magical Girl."

"So I summoned a Caster? Wonderful. I might have been aiming for that class before my Catalyst was stolen, but now..." The smoke parted to reveal who the person talking to me was. He was of average height, and had long blonde hair that spiked over one side of his face. He had a long black jacket and had a loose tie around his neck. Is he another cosplayer? No, outfit isn't elaborate enough. For another thing, he has a stain on his shirt. Probably doesn't take care of his clothes. "No." He blinked, scrying my appearance closer. "Not a Caster... a Dual Class? _You're_ an Archer. Typical. I suppose you'll do though, girl."

"Wh-what?" I spluttered, confused. I glanced around myself, suddenly realising that as the obscuring mist parted, I wasn't in the event venue. I was somewhere completely different. My mind whirled. I spun, looking for an exit. "J-just where am I?" This WASN'T the staircase, or even the venue from before! It was a small, dark room filled with books, with the sole window obscured by a ratty curtain, and a bizarre circle traced along the ground in red paint had a set of blunt knives arrayed in the centre ritualistically. "Who are you!? What do you want!? Why did you bring me here!?"

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god! You hear about this sort of stuff all the time on the news, but you never expect it to happen to you! This was one of those creepy stalker people, wasn't it? He's the kind of guy who kidnaps young ladies like me and does all sorts of horrible things to them, isn't he? But how?! I don't remember anything like being kidnapped! I tripped, then I was here! Either way though, when my daddy hears about this, he'd pay whatever ransom was necessary! Though honestly, I didn't ever think my dad was _that _loaded to have someone actually kidnap his daughter.

"Not only is It the wrong Class, but its also stupid." The man said with a vicious sneer on his face. "I suppose that even broken tools can be useful."

"I'm not a tool!" I shouted at him. I'm me, and I'm awesome! I'm nobodies tool, certainly not this rapist's!

"Yes you are." The man concluded, raising a hand to reveal a lightly glowing tattoo. "By this command seal, I order you to obey my every order!" The tattoo flashed once before a section of it faded, leaving two sections left. "Now, shut up."

I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn't. It was like part of me really, really _really _wanted to listen to this guy, but why?

"As for why I summoned you, its rather simple." He smiled slightly and walked up to me to appraise me. Even if I was unable to speak, I glared at him. "You, my Archer, are going to win me the Holy Grail War and grant my family the respect it deserves. I am Sagara Hyouma, and I am your Master."

A Holy Grail War? I felt faint and stumbled, falling against the wall. I looked down at myself still in my Mami attire, then at the person who said he had summoned me. It couldn't be... the terms were similar to that manga I once read, and I remember that Command Seal thing, so could it really be-

Sagara laughed at me. "A mouse as well, someone fitting for a rat like myself. I may not have gotten Jack or Medea like I wanted, but you'll do. Go on, say something."

My mouth unlocked and I struggled to say something coherent other than an "Eeek". But the fact remained that he had brought me here somehow, and he _did _have power over me. But this sort of thing is impossible, and even if somehow I had been 'magically' transported to Fate Stay Night, I shouldn't have been able to be summoned anyway! I'm a cosplayer, and even if I look like a hero, I'm not one, so why am I here?

There was so much I wanted to formulate in a single sentence, but instead I said only this, "I am Servant Archer, and you are my Master.".

After that, I think I passed out in a full on faint, hoping desperately that this was a dream.

XXXXXXXXXX

Ahhh... sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep. After a long night of staying up late on my far too old laptop and writing, only barely staying conscious through liberal use of Dr Pepper and loud anime music, sleep was the greatest remedy available. More often than not, I sleep like a log, which is particularly useful for countering my frequent late nights, since the only thing that would be able to wake me up would be if the house was on fire, or if my too-loud alarm bleeped.

And so much to my surprise, I didn't wake to the sound of my alarm, or the sight of my home scorched to the ground. It was a smell. A _really _bad smell. Like, worse than sweat and socks. Worthy of instantly plugging my nose and retching. My god, did I sweat _that _much in the night? If so, why was it so damn smelly, and why was I now so cold?

You know how it is when you suddenly feel that something isn't right? When the average sensations you feel in bed are no longer present, as if you kicked your duvet away from you and woke up cold? It was like that.

I was chilly for one thing, my back was aching and my hand hurt. My mattress was normally harder than Mr T but today it seemed twice as bad, and my duvet wasn't anywhere near me, nor was my pillow. I'm also pretty sure that someone had left a tap on, since I heard a rhythmic sound. I groaned, realising that I was awake and that nothing would put me back into the Sandman's domain. Fumbling for my duvet to catch at least a minute or two before my alarm went off to signal that I absolutely couldn't stay in bed any longer, I was surprised that I didn't feel anything beside me on my desk, because it wasn't there. I could only feel the cold touch of stone, and something slimy. Like moss.

THAT was when I realised that the reason why I was so cold, why my back hurt, why my duvet wasn't here and why I was on a flat, cold surface. It was because this wasn't my room.

I forced myself awake instantly.

THIS WASN'T MY ROOM!

I forced open my eyes and tried to rise, but failed due to unfamiliarity of my surroundings, only succeeding in bashing into a surface. Wherever I was, it was dark and damp, AND I HAD NO IDEA WHERE I WAS! Oh my god, why am I here!?

A sense of dread to accompany the smell and the sensation of the cold. I did what anyone would do if they awoke to a dark and unknown room. PANIC!

My heart was beating at what felt like the speed of light, and my hands were sweating as my breath came in short pants. My mind was clouded by the same thoughts cycling through my mind as I furiously tried to imagine just what the hell was going on.

Where am I!?

Why am I here!?

Who brought me here!?

Why is it so dark!?

And what's that _smell_!?

I had never been in a situation like this, so how was I supposed to react!? And even beyond that, this situation felt _worse _than normal. That pit in the bottom of my stomach had returned with a vengeance, and I couldn't help feel that I was blind due to the dark.

Oh my god, I'm blind aren't I!? Well, its just as likely as all the other reasons for why its dark! I could have been kidnapped, I could have been drugged and carted off somewhere, or any other GOD DAMNED reason! Lets add mutilation to that list too!

No! No! I don't want to be blind! DON'T WANT TO BE-

Okay- deep breath. Panicking won't help me. Lets me logical about this; worrying won't help me. Whoever kidnapped me I don't know, but lets at least get a feel for where I am. Its better than standing here and hyperventilating, and perhaps knowing my surroundings will offer some clue as to where I was, and as to why I'm here.

Hell! I could find a way out!

No, that's unrealistic, but lets be POSITIVE! Better to be in the 'denial and false hope' stage than the 'oh-my-god-this-sucks-I'M-GONNA-DIE!' phase.

Its still dark, and my eyesight is normally sucky anyway due to my constant exposure to my monitor screen, so I'll have to figure out where I am in other ways.

First off, I'm leaning against a wall. I traced the wall, finding more moss stuff (Ewww... Ignore it! Ignore it!) and regular square indentations. Ahah! Bricks! I'm inside wherever I am!

Now lets just ignore how I could be trapped in a concrete box underground somewhere...OH MY GOD I'M STUCK IN A DARK UNDERGROUND-

Deep. Breaths! JAMES! NOT HELPING!

Next, smell. I sniffed the terrible scent some more, and it kinda gave me a hospital vibe. Like sick people and medicine, and there was an undertone of decay, like rotting fruit. It was sickly sweet. Not getting me anywhere.

Hearing? Drip... drip, drip... drip... drip,drip,drip... drip, drip... drip. Probably a tap, maybe? Some liquid dripping anyway.

Back to fumbling... OWWW! I walked into something, nearly tripped over it. No, I did. Foot went onto it. Landing on something soft and tough... its a shape... oh my... I'm standing on someone's face. Its a person! Maybe there like me! Maybe they can help me!

Or maybe they brought me here, whispered a terrified part of my mind.

"H-hey!" I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice as I removed my foot and instead felt out the person I had stood on and gripped his shirt tightly. "Help! Where am I?! Where are we?!"

No response. "H-Hey."

A whisper. A croaky sound so quiet that it could be just a draught. But a whisper.

"Who are you? Where am!?" I repeated. I tried to reach for his hand, but found nothing. Not even an arm.

Then, the darkness began to clear. My squinting had merited results, and my eyesight was adapting. So lets see where I am...?

I screamed, seeming to tear my throat apart in the process.

"EEEEYYAAAUUUUUGGGHHHHH!" I wailed, feeling like I was in a horror film. There was NO WAY this could be real.

The person I had been fondling? Yeah, well he was dead. FUCK! As in DEAD dead! IT WAS A CORPSE!

I stumbled back, falling- on the floor- shuffling away on my knees as I fled from the mangled sight I was only just beginning to perceive. I felt something hard behind me. A surface. I turned round and looked down.

I screamed again. Ohmygod-Ohmygod-Ohmygod-Ohmygod-Ohmygod-OHMYGOD! That smell wasn't rotting fruit, but decaying flesh!

I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I did, and it went all over my long sleeved, Homer Simpson pyjamas. One part of my mind absently noted that sick didn't come out easily, but then the rest of my mind reminded it THAT I WAS PRACTICALLY SITTING ON A CORPSE AND THAT THERE WAS A _DEAD _BODY NEXT ME!

What came out wasn't a scream, but more of a whimper. I could make out details in the darkness now. There wasn't just one or two bodies, but _dozens_. Propped against walls or lying down were coffins, and inside them were plenty of corpses. Some lacked limbs and others were like skeletons; some had bugs gnawing through them, but most were decaying. FUCKING. HELL!

A whisper. Some sound, then dripping. Water was falling into the THINGS mouths, and-

I threw up a little more in my mouth.

Movies always present dead bodies as something interesting, something cool enough to warrant poking them with a stick, while books could never quite capture the feeling of seeing a dead person, knowing that they had stopped breathing and were gone and weren't alive and were bleeding and were rotting and were dead and dead and dead and dead and dead and DEAD!

I started to hyperventilate again, cupping my hands over my mouth. They were wet. Wet with whatever crap had been on the walls and on the bodies.

NOW I was crying as well.

Whispers, again whispers on the wind. Pitch-blackness receded to only mostly-dark, and I could make out movement. Twitches, they were movingmoving alive?

These decaying THINGS are _alive? _

One eye turns to me, pleading, asking for that HELL to end!

Fucking hell. I haven't just been kidnapped, but I had been left in a room with these zombies! If I could have thrown up my stomach again I would have, because I had the sneaking suspicion that if I hadn't woken up I would have ended up like them. Barely alive, certainly dying, but never dead.

Not alive, not dead. No. I was going to be one of _them_ and my sobbing wasn't helping me _or_ them. Not corpses or people then; lets think of 'em as really realistic mannequins.

More eyes turn to me, and the wind feels like unsaid screams wrought from withered lungs.

Correction, realistic mannequins with ROBOTICS!

Now, lets move it James! Lets get out of here before you too get turned into whatever the fuck was going on here...

My sobs stopped and I wiped my chin with my sleeve. I had to get out of here!

The room filled with coffins (Only mannequins!) was longish, but not very wide. Barely enough space for you to walk between the laid down coffins. One way was blocked by the wall, though there was a door the other way.

"A door!"

I ran as fast I could while being barefoot and covered in puke, and managed to avoid glancing at the coffins (MANNEQUINS!) I passed. Then I was at the door, wrenching it open and through. Into a room.

I was in an underground temple. There was an alter of some sort to one side and it was brighter than in the Coffin Room, but I felt no better. This was some sort of religious place (Cult, maybe?), so I'd hate to see what sort of nut job set that place up.

Stairs! Wonderful, lets get the fuck out of here!

Sound of steps, a sudden glaring light of a candle. I flinched, unable to move.

Someone was coming down them. _Someone was coming! _The same bastard that did all that shit, and that would do it to me if he got me.

I slapped myself hard, to wake myself from my inaction, and to stop my worried wheezing. I had to hide! But where? Not in that room, _anywhere _but there! I lunged for the alter and threw myself behind it, ignoring the scrapes caused in the process.

The footsteps continued and the light grew brighter. I held my breath, worried only about escaping the persons attention.

Pleasegoaway! Pleasegoawaygoaway _goaway!_

"Hmmph!" Remarked a male voice. "Watashitachi wa koko de nani ga arimasu ka?"

I breathed in. The man was speaking another language! Foreign? Probably. What did he say!?

More steps... step... step... step... I could hear him, only a metre away, on the other side of the alter. I've never been religious, but I sent a mental prayer up to all of the various deities. _'please let him go away!'_

He taps me on the shoulder.

"BWWWAAHH!" I flinched away and the man laughed. I wanted to scramble away, but I had worked my way into a corner. There was a wall behind me and that was it.

STUPID! What an idiot I was! Hiding behind something this small and_ hoping _he didn't find me despite all my screaming? What a STUPID move! I'm dead now, I'm dead, I'm-

Not dead yet!

With desperation brought on only by fear of death, I stood up and I shoved the man away with all the strength I could. I'm not strong at all, but there _are _tales of mothers lifting incredible weights to save their children, and other such tales, so even with my weak demeanour I was somehow able to put him off balance for a moment. Probably out of surprise.

"FUCK OFF!" I told him, screaming, then I vaulted the alter (Barely managing to not trip over in doing so) and ran for the stairs. I made it five steps before the man recovered and incapacitated me almost easily.

"Shit!" I cursed. He had kicked my legs out from under me, and now he was leering over me smugly, and I was certain that I would be unable to catch him off guard again.

He picked up the candle and holder he had dropped (Which had managed not to be extinguished) and examined my state, glanced at the open door I had emerged from, then smiled.

In the glare of the candle I looked at my captor. He was in a typical priests clothing, of purple and black with a blatant golden cross hanging round his neck. He had shaggy brown hair, with similar eyes that stared into my own blue orbs with amusement.

For what could have been minutes we looked at one another, then he spoke again. "English?" He asked with only light traces of an accent.

"Y-yes." I squeaked.

"Well..." He began, still staring deep into me with that smile of his. "This _is _a surprise. I had come down here upon hearing shouts that shouldn't be here, only to find _you_." He regarded my just-out-of-bed look and tilted his head. "I must admit that I would love to hear the tale of how a foreigner in your condition ended up in my church."

"You didn't bring me here?" I asked. At his nod, I let out a breath of relief. Things still felt suspicious, and I still felt like I was in danger, but even so.

"No, I did not." He pondered for a moment. "And while I would like to hear this tale, I think I'd rather kill you."

Any hope I had left shattered into a million little pieces. "Kill me? Like you killed the others!?"

"Yes," He admitted that he had caused all that living hell I had woken up to with barely more than a blink, like it wasn't worth a moment of thought. It made me mad, and it made me scared, since even if he hadn't brought me here, with that one word he had guaranteed that my initial assessment that I wouldn't leave alive was right. "Although if you had been paying attention to the children in the coffins you would have noticed that they aren't quite dead yet."

"You're a maniac!"

"Perhaps so, but the words of a dead man mean nothing."

"If I die, people will go looking for me!"

The priest scoffed. "Why would an American or English family look for their lost son in a place like Japan? No, they'll never find your body. You'll officially have gone missing, like so many other children."

"But-"

"But nothing. Even if this was an issue, the fact remains that I can't just let you leave here alive. No, you saw _that _after all." He gestured to the Coffin Room. "And you might ruin the game if you told. We can be civil at least, _that _much I owe you. I haven't been the best host in this place of God. So stand up."

I did, taking a dozen or so steps back as I did so. The priest allowed it gracefully, although I think we both knew that it wouldn't help me much.

Damn. The realisation was sinking in. He said he was _going to murder me! _I shoved all my ill thoughts and wishes, all my sickness at the thought of that room aside. I didn't want to die, and he said we can be civil. Perhaps I can delay him. Perhaps someone will find me and save me if I delay him long enough.

I almost scoffed at my own thoughts. Yeah right. But I can try at least.

"My name is James." I introduced, talking quickly. "I have no idea how I got here, who brought me here or why. You let me go and I won't come back. I'll leave and put the thought of that room in the box labelled clearly 'repressed memories'."

The priest took a few moments to process my words, no doubt translating it, then responded with a nod. "My name is Kotomine Kirei." The name hit me like a hammer; I had heard it before, somewhere. "And so welcome to my parlour said the spider to the fly... unfortunately, I still can't let you leave."

Shit.

"And ultimately, it seems that you have no interesting tale to tell me." His face twisted to portray an emotion I couldn't place. "So I have no interest in keeping you alive, even if I am curious."

"Why kill me though?" I spluttered, staggering away again. Slowly. Making it look gradual. "There's nothing to gain!"

"True, but I'd enjoy it." The priest admitted. "But your passing will be quick; I won't play with you like the others, and I shall end you by my own hand." Chopped off limbs. Dead but pleading eyes. Rotting skin. _He _caused that after all. "So rejoice, young James, for your suffering shall be swift and you might find happiness in death."

My mind whirled. Kotomine Kirei... I knew that name! I damn well did! There's a connection here, I read it somewhere... I needed to think of something or I was dead. Dead.

From Kirei's sleeves sprung... _swords!? _Yeah, he had blades somewhere between swords and knives and wielded them expertly but with minimal motion, he readied to _throw them of all things_, when I blurted out the first thing I could think of.

"HANG ON! Don't death row inmates get a last meal!?" I shouted in distress, trying not to flinch from the outstretched blades. A shadow of doubt- the hand gripping the swords stopped short just of throwing them.

"Indeed." Kirei acknowledged that reluctantly, then returned his blades to his sleeves through unknown means and regarded me sadly, like he was a child that had just been denied his favourite toy. "That is true; those about to be executed are often said to receive a last meal, and as your host and a man of God, I suppose I owe you that much before I slit your throat."

Without a further word, he motioned to the stairs and began to walk. I rushed after him, struggling to match the pace of the priest who's name was finally starting to cause gears to turn in my mind as to where I had read his name, and followed him up the long staircase, out of the darkness and into the light of what was above. I rubbed my hand nervously, idly noting that the itch that I had woken up with before the shit hit the fan, and wondered just what was coming next, and if I would be able to stave off death a second time. But even if I had narrowly avoided my death this time, I couldn't help feel that I was probably better off staying in the darkness with the alive-not-yet-dead than going into the belly of the beast that lay ahead.

**AN- Well then, wasn't that fun? Now that all the pieces are in place, I know I'm just going to _love _screwing with the timeline and the people in it. Next chapter begins the character central POV chapters where we go into exploring and developing the individual characters, so look forwards to it. **

**Before I finish off though, I have one question for you, the audience. Some characters will have more backstory chapters before the war than others, and I plan release each of these sections bit by bit- for example, Farrin might have two chapters to himself, so I could put forwards the first chapter early on, and give the last one later after you've seen a bit of the other characters too. Basically, I intend to release them so their backstories are told bit by bit, with them all ending around the same time just before the War chapters begin. **

**Or, if you prefer, I can release the chapters character by character- having all the Farrin chapters, then all the Kieran ones, and so on and so on. I'm happy to do either way, so let me know what you think. Got a question, opinion or criticism? Feel free to drop me a PM or a review, since all feedback is appreciated and helps me correct and polish the creative process. Undying Soul out.**


	4. Origins: Farrin I

**Chapter 3- Farrin I**

**AN- This chapter came much quicker than the last did, though now that exam period is over I have more free time on my hands. Not MUCH, due to Real Life, work experience and university searching, but SOME at least- which resulted in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I own only my Self Inserts. Nasu owns the asses of everyone from Shirou to Gil-kun, and I doubt that even my most elaborate plan could trick him into signing off the rights to me...**

Being raised by Kiritsugu Emiya was an interesting experience. Bloody terrifying because of the implication of what said raising meant, but still interesting. Following the meeting at the hospital and the revelation of just what a mess I had gotten myself into, Kiritsugu sped the adoption process along (Probably with his Magecraft) and was quick to take me away from the hospital that had briefly treated me.

Surprisingly, the doctors were amazed to find that I had come from the fire in perfect health. In their words it was a miracle. In mine it was a Deus Ex Machina courtesy of the Noble Phantasm I knew was implanted in my body.

I'm not stupid. I never have been. Never will be. So it was pretty obvious that since the universe had spat in my face and decided to drop me in the _freaking _NASUVERSE of all places, and that since I had been the one plucked from the fire by a devastated Magus Killer, I was probably similar to Shirou and had Avalon -the sheathe of King Arthur's legendary blade Excalibur- within me.

That was where our similarities ended though. Because there was a single fundamental fact which terrified me to such an extent that for the first few weeks I spent in Kiritsugu's care I was barely able to sleep.

_I am not Shirou Emiya!_

I have no idea what happened to the hero wannabe. Maybe he died in the flames. Maybe he survived and his real family and will never be caught up in the Grail War fiasco. Maybe someone else saved him.

Either way, I had unknowingly taken the redheads place. I had been saved by the Magus, and _this fact _was what terrified me so.

Because I'm _normal_. You see, the thing about Shirou is that while he can sometimes be a thick headed idiot, he is a _distorted _thick headed idiot. Any average person in his place would have died as soon as Lancer took notice of him, but Shirou had the right combination of stubbornness, luck and potential to allow him to survive and thrive in the Holy Grail War.

He possessed Unlimited Blade Works, an inherent ability to copy and sympathise with any and all blades. And he was stuck in a war with MANY badass weapons and Archer and Gilgamesh being generous with their selections- so it was purely due to him winning the super power lottery that he even ended up standing a small modicum of a chance against monsters like Gilgamesh and Dark Sakura.

Meanwhile, there's little ol' Farrin sitting here in the corner. I _don't_ have any superpowers. I have no super lucky ability that will _just happen _to come in handy later on. I have no plot immunity. And most importantly, _I don't have Unlimited Blade Works- _even if I did somehow survive the opening barrages, the endgame with Gilgamesh would destroy me!

I don't want to have to play the part of the hero! I don't want to take his place! Because I'm not naive enough to assume that I could live through it. Just look at the visual novel! There are so many ways to die that its ridiculous! Shirou only managed to live through the disaster in most routes because of luck, coincidence and his inherent Magical abilities.

Again I reiterate that I _don't have said abilities. _To me a sword is a sword, and nothing else. If I were to ever get caught up in the War, I have no doubts that I would be massacred faster than you could say 'Oopps. I just got squished by Berserker!'

No. A lot of things scared me, but this was the greatest terror I had. I couldn't take Shirou Emiya's role. I couldn't! And I wouldn't! Saving the world could be some other persons job! Not mine! I've already died once and I don't want a repeat performance, thank you very much!

So one day I worked up the courage and approached my new 'father'. I hadn't had an actual parent in years, so it was a novelty to have someone act like a dad, but I couldn't forget my problem.

"Hey dad..." I asked while he was busy talking to some construction men. Since he had adopted me we had gone to the house I knew would become the Emiya household and that Kiritsugu had used in the Fourth War, and the Magus had begun plans to renovate the building and make it habitable. That was why I needed to ask early on. "Can I ask you something?"

"What is it, Farrin?" Kiritsugu asked kindly, turning his attention away from the builder to drop to one knee to be down on my level. Damn did being small suck, but the cuteness factor of being so young would help me.

"Dad... can we go away?" I popped the question, making the sentence seem natural and not forced.

"What do you mean?" He responded after thinking for a moment or two. Kiristugu's first language was Japanese but as a mercenary it was obvious that he'd know English, which was lucky for me since I _didn't _know Japanese.

"Everyone here speaks another language, and I can't play with anyone because I can't talk to them." I said, trying to use words that a child of my age would use. "And... it reminds me of back then." I trailed off.

"Of back then?" Prompted the man.

"Yeah. Of the fire. I... don't like it here. Can we move to England or something?"

"Its doable I suppose." Commented the ex-Magus Killer wearily.

XXXXXXXXXX

And it _was_ doable. No doubt the decision forced the former mercenary to change his plans since he wouldn't be around to keep an eye on the Grail System in Fuyuki, but I didn't care. I wanted to be as far away from the action that would happen in ten years as humanly possible. I just wanted to live this second chance of life peacefully, without fear of death, so I could only hope that being on the other side of the planet would stop the universe from forcing me to get involved.

The move took some time to set up, but within a few months me and my 'father' were set up in a small detached house in the countyside. It was nice to be back in my birth country where people actually spoke my language, even if I couldn't truly talk to them because they'd never understand my problems.

My 'dad' (After a year or two it was easier to accept the idea) encouraged me to play with the other kids in the small village we lived in and because I didn't want to show that I was abnormal I went along with it. There were a few other kids my age that I could tolerate, so I was often roped into their childish games.

I noticed that Kiritsugu's condition had started to deteriorate, but he didn't mention it and I neither did I. Keeping the status quo was the the important thing here, since I wanted no divergences from my ordinary and safe life.

Me and my 'dad' actually got along quite well. He couldn't cook for shit and neither could I, so we often bonded over our mutual destruction of the kitchen. I think that on some level Kiritsugu knew I was keeping things from him- that I was lying to him and wasn't quite as amnesic as I made out myself to be- but he _did _love me as a son, or at least as the only person he was able to 'save' from the fire, so I think he was content to let me keep my secrets so long as I was happy and safe.

So for awhile my life was peaceful. People naturally adapt, and as such I adapted to the fact that I was in a world I had previously known to be fiction. However, I could only hope that this peace would last.

XXXXXXXXXX

_The fire rages on and the dead rise. Cooked and boiling, rotten and bones, the effigies of those whom had died in the Fuyuki Fire stalk towards me. I'm frozen in place, unable to move, bound by the sin of not DYING when all else had._

_I might have been selfish, I might have run and left everyone else behind because I really didn't care about their lives more than my own, but now those sacrificed are catching up._

_**Why won't you die? Why didn't you die? Why didn't you help us? Save us? You could have helped? Why? Why? Why?**_

_With mouths that could not speak, they asked of me why I decided to leave them behind._

_**Why? Why? Why? **_

"_Because I was scared." I tried to tell them. "Because I cared more for my own life, and could do nothing even if I had tried."_

_**Why? Why? Why won't you DIE? DIE? DIE? DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!**_

_The dead grasp out with desperate arms, wrapping round me as I'm dragged down, fire coating me like naplam as they drag me to Hell._

_**WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE!?**_

Then I woke up, crying out at the nightmare of all the carnage I had seen when I first arrived in this world. I lay there on my bed, panting, trying to reassure myself that zombies really aren't out to get me.

Moments later, my door opens up and 'dad' walks in, a reassuring smile in place and a glass of water in hand. "Nightmare again?" He asks.

I just nod. They'd been appearing less frequently, but you don't just get involved in something like the Fuyuki Fire without having a few nightmares of all those burning corpses.

"I'm here." Says dad. "Drink up. I'll sit with you for awhile."

I try to tell him to go back to bed- that I'm damn well old enough to go to sleep alone, but I couldn't exactly go out of character, could I? That night I fell asleep quicker than normal- the Ex-Magus Killer's presence was more reassuring than one would expect.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Farrin."

"Yes dad?" I responded, handing him a plate to be washed. Once more we had gotten Chinese takeout (From the only Chinese shop in the village) due to our unbelievably bad abilities in the kitchen, and we were now in the midst's of washing the few plates we had used for the meal. Dad wasn't one for pampering or spoiling a kid, so even at my apparent young age I was just as accountable for helping with the chores as he was.

"Why have you never wanted to learn Magecraft?" The piercing question hit me like a hammer and I almost dropped the plate I was currently holding.

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently. 

"Farrin, you know I am a Magus."

"Yeah, you told me you were one just after you adopted me." I commented, thinking back to those early panic filled days. I was just glad that they were over and that I had managed to sidestep the shitstorm in Fuyuki, since sticking around there was only asking for me to get caught up in things.

"So I use _magic._" Reminded the Japanese man jokingly. "Normally a kid would give an arm and a leg to know magic, to go off and have adventures of saving princesses and being wizards."

"So? What does it matter?" I raised an eyebrow curiously and resumed placing kitchen utensils in the soapy bowl dad was working with.

"So why haven't you asked to learn Magecraft even once?" Kiritsugu said plainly. "Most people would have even a _small_ interest in learning magic, so I just thought it was curious that you had never shown any sort of interest despite knowing that magic was out there."

"It just never interested me." I said honestly, knowing that learning Magecraft was testament to shooting myself in the foot since all it would do is raise my chances of getting chucked into a life threatening situation. To be a Magus is to walk with death, so I was perfectly fine with being a muggle.

"To be frank, I never would have taught you anyway." Admitted the dark haired man. "I don't want you to have the life of a Magus, so I would have refused to steer you down that path, but I was just curious about why you never asked the question."

"What more do you want me to say?" I asked rhetorically. "I'm more sci-fi than fantasy, so you can keep your magic thanks. I'd sooner have a lightsaber~" I joked.

Kiritsugu laughed and ruffled my hair in an affectionate fashion. "You and your Star Wars..." And yes, I had shown my dad the wonders of the Star Wars series, and he had quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Ignore his denials, because he is undeniably a fanboy. He has a toy lightsaber damn it and can quote A New Hope word for word!

"Hey, don't be a hatin'." I told him. "You said you'd take me to a con some time, so you can't talk. You love the little SSCCHHUUMM sound a lightsaber makes more than I do!"

"I did promise, didn't I?"

"Yup." I was actually looking forwards to it.

"Well, I can't take us to the next one I said I'd take you."

"Why not?" I demanded childishly, tying to keep up appearances.

Kiritsugu stopped washing a moment and the humour faded from his voice. "I'm going on another trip."

"Oh... okay." I responded, not inquiring further. Ever since we had settled down in jolly old Britain my dad occasionally left me alone to go off on his own to visit mainland Europe. Normally leaving a small child alone while you go off gallivanting to Europe is irresponsible but I'm older than I look and can take care of myself, so I was fine with his visits. He never told me what he was doing there and I never asked, but since he was often gone for up to a week at a time I could only assume he was taking advantage of his close proximity to Germany (Geographically speaking in comparison to being in Japan) to try and break into the Einzbern's territory to see his daughter.

That reminds me. I hope little Ilya never figures out that I exist. If she comes storming up to my doorstep in ten years time with Berserker in tow and splatters me on the carpet it'd probably suck. Scratch that, its a plausible possibility. This world _really _sucks.

"Anyway, I'll be leaving tomorrow, okay Farrin?"

"That soon?"

"Yeah, sorry about that, son." Again he ruffled my hair. He seemed to have an unusual fascination with doing it, though that might just be because I secretly like him doing that. My _old _dad used to do that, so it was a nostalgic action.

Damn I missed my old dad. And my old mom. And my grandma. Hell, I miss my entire old life. Things were simpler back before I lost a fight with a bus and was dropped in a world where everyone except you is a badass.

XXXXXXXXXX

I awoke to screams. Another year had passed by peacefully, but that peace was shattered by the sounds of terror and horror dancing across the night air.

I was in the house alone. Kiritsugu was on another one of his journeys, but was due back the following day, but this fact wasn't going to help me.

The screams continued, though changed in intensity as new voices of terror joined the mix. On shaky feet I left my bed and slipped on the shoes I kept by my bed, the last residues of my sleep gone at the startling brutality I could hear.

I couldn't afford to think. I could only act.

The last time I had felt so scared was the fire I had been pulled from by Kiritsugu.

I pulled on my coat, then I ran. I didn't know what had caused the screams or why, but I didn't care. All I wanted to do was stay alive, and only a fool would stay in place while whatever was causing those screams caused those screams.

I left everything in the house and exited through the back door, my heart thudding in my chest as if reminding me of what I had to loose.

I ran away, keeping low and attempting to stay away from the louder sources of noise.

There was smoke in the air. A fire had been started somewhere else in the village and now it was starting to spread, purging all in its path.

Through terrified eyes I saw people I know murdered and saw people I recognised performing the killing. My home was in ruins, and the denizens of my quiet life were now killing one another.

My peace was gone. Utterly destroyed.

A fallen body on the floor began to rise, dragging itself to its feet despite the terrible damage covering it torso, like some sort of undead monstrosity. I thought back to those figures in my nightmares and the fire that accompanies them and shuddered. Zombies were always the horror monsters I hated the most purely because of how _human _they were; it was uncanny just how uncomfortable the idea of the dead coming alive to eat the living made me feel. The corpse joined the slaughter, and I continued to run, staying low in the hopes that I would be forgotten.

Luckily my home was at the outskirts of the village, so most of the carnage was happening elsewhere, but enough was close to me to make me fear for my life.

One of the reanimated dead caught sight of me and began to stagger to my location.

_My heart literally stopped._

I ran faster, desperately wishing that I had picked up a knife or something before fleeing.

The Dead followed behind me.

I looked behind to see the corpse continuing to trek after me, and I felt helpless. My body was young and feeble and my mind was clouded. I had no weapons and was utterly alone. There was nothing I could do to stop the monstrosity in human from stalking me. 

Suddenly I wished I had learnt Magecraft, purely so I wouldn't feel so helpless right now.

I reached the ends of the village and kept running, putting my dead home behind me as I fled. Once more I abandoned all those people (Just like the fire) but again I couldn't find a Fuck to give, because I honestly wanted to live more than I wanted them to not die.

I thanked my lucky stars that I was in the countryside, because there was a large enclose of trees quite close to where I was. My feet were small, my stamina non existent and I and couldn't run much longer; perhaps I could hide in up one of them or something? Perhaps I'd live through the night before my heart burst in my chest from sheer terror.

There! A tree!

I rushed for it, placing all my hopes in climbing one and being ignored by whatever had caused the disaster which struck my home. I almost ran into the tree, but was so glad to hit it that I smiled. With my tiny (To me) limbs I frantically scrambled up the collection of branches to try and pull myself higher and higher and higher. I ignored my fear of heights and fear of falling and kept climbing, because it was the only way I'd escape the Dead that had now reached the tree.

I could successfully claimed to have answered one of life's most mysterious questions: can a Zombie climb a tree? The answer, if you're wondering, is no. I stayed in that tree for hours, even nodding off from exhaustion, while the reanimated corpse of a person I once knew waited beneath me, hoping that I would fall and occasionally shaking the tree hungrily.

With the sunrise I could see the full scale of my homes destructions. Only ruins remained. The screams had faded long ago, so it wouldn't surprise me if I was the only one left besides the Dead.

Then came the counter attack.

From my vantage point I could see figures enter the settlement. Figures with blades and fire and Magecraft. They swept through the hordes of the dead, leaving none behind in their wake. All the dead were killed quickly, and after they cleared up the last of the bodies they left.

They left. Leaving the one Dead still with me and abandoning me to my fate, purely because they missed us.

Damn did I hate my life.

Then, like an angel had heard my prayers, gunfire pierced the early morning. My dad entered the clearing, a gun held expertly in his hands, and blew the corpses head off. And its chest. And its heart. Then proceeded to destroy each limb in turn. Before finally placing one final bullet into the skull using his signature weapon.

What could I say? There was no kill like overkill.

"Farrin, are you okay?" He asked, directing his attention to the tree I was hiding in.

I practically threw myself down the tree and launched myself at my saviour, giving him a tight hug. I had never been so happy to see a man with a gun in my life.

XXXXXXXXXX

It turns out that I was now the survivor of an attack by this worlds equivalent of vampires, a Dead Apostle, whom had _not _turned the other villagers into zombies but rather into undead minions. Go Figure. In this universe vampires don't sparkle; they break the rules of reality and eat people.

So it was another miracle that I was alive. It was a miracle I had escaped the village, and a miracle that Kiritsugu came home when he did and a miracle that none of the people responsible for killing the Undead had found me (Because they would have killed me to silence all the witnesses). So I was very lucky to be alive. _Very_.

After that incident, we moved again, but this time we moved to the heart of London- a vast contrast to the peaceful rural village we had previously lived in. Our apartment wasn't as nice as our old home, but we were surrounded by people, which gave us some safety in numbers, while London was the supernatural centre of Britain thus giving us further protection from the supernatural due to the close proximity of the Clock Tower.

Dad stopped going on his foreign trips as frequently, perhaps as a result of his growing illness or his discomfort for leaving me alone due to what had happened before.

Still, I had learnt a valuable lesson from the attack of the Dead Apostle (Whom had not been caught). I had finally grasped the idea of refraining from being complacent. I had assumed that by staying in Britain I was far away from the plot of Fate Stay Night, thus I was safe. However, the oversight on my end was that I'm not in the world of Fate Stay Night but in the universe of the _Nasuverse_. There is a vast difference, simply because in the Nasuverse there are many more stories in motion that the Holy Grail War and many more things that could kill me.

By leaving Japan I had potentially gotten away from the plot of Fate Stay Night and escaped being a part of the war, but in doing so I had slipped into the greater scheme of things. Japan is generally left alone by the supernatural; England isn't. I had just endured a brief encounter with the plot of another story completely, and in general the monsters inherent in the Dead Apostles are worse than any Heroic Spirit.

In short, one could say that I was more screwed than if I had stayed in Fuyuki, since now I had to deal with Vampires and other shit that would never crop up if I had just stayed in Japan.

But I had learnt that lesson now. Just by living in this world, _I was in critical danger! _Every breath was limited, since even planet Earth wanted to kill me (Well, one half of the schizophrenic planet anyway)! I could not just sit around and expect to be safe, because this world fundamentally has no security. Few people could stand up to the terrors that stalk the night and walk the days of this world; so even if I hated the idea, I couldn't allow myself to stay ignorant and weak.

I would need to put myself in some amount of danger in order to survive here and gain the power to protect myself purely so I wouldn't die from being sneezed on; I would need to become a Magus.

XXXXXXXXXX

Days later I asked dad if he could teach me Magecraft, if only the basics so I could protect myself. While dad _had _admitted that he had initially intended to never teach me Magecraft, the events at our old home proved that he couldn't necessarily protect me from the monsters prowling through the night, looking for blood. As such, he reluctantly agreed to try and teach me now that I showed an interest and there was a need for me to know.

The idea of learning magic and potentially hurting myself scared me like all the other things I feared, but on the scale of terror learning magic was much lower than being eaten by a Dead Apostle or murdered by a trigger-happy Ilya.

And so my lessons begun. Dad taught me the basics first; actually informing me of all the details of the world I lived in. All of the factions, all the main elements of Magecraft, all the Things To Run Away From Quickly If There Is Any Chance Of Them Appearing; Kiritsugu told me it all, trying to make sure I was educated as possible on just what threats there were in the world before he tried to show me how to fight them.

Eventually he decided it was time for me to actually start using Magecraft. We found one problem with that:

"Farrin," Began dad, absolutely serious. "You possess no Circuits."

"Wait... none?" I replied with growing dread. "_None!?" _

"I'm afraid not." Dad shook his head. "I can't sense any. I'll call in an old favour I'm owed from the Clock Tower to have you looked at, but don't get your hopes up."

After hearing the news I wanted to laugh. How ironic- not only was I the least Shirou-like person out there, who had no traits to survive in his place, but now I didn't even have the means to learn _how to protect myself? _Whatever force that brought me here is a serious dick head, because how ridiculous is the idea of shoving a teen like me in a situation like this if you aren't even fair enough to give me the power to fight?

I had no Magic Circuits. Not a single one. Even after the third party Magus was called in to double check, the fact was not disclaimed- no Magic Circuits.

According to him, I had "Absolutely no potential to use Magecraft. He has no Magic Circuits and no Sorcery Traits; he would be a poor Magus, unable to even activate simple spells."

XXXXXXXXXX

I was crushed. Now _apparently _I was stuck in a world out to kill me without any ability to actually defend myself. 

I hate my life. Its just one giant cosmic joke where my bloody death will be the punch line.

On the one hand my adopted father was glad I couldn't use Magecraft since that meant I would never really be forced to become a Magus, but on the other it meant I couldn't defend myself from the threats out there. The man who was once the Magus Killer had a limited life expectancy, he couldn't look after me forever.

So I decided to do something dangerous. Try to learn it anyway. Because the idea of dying from external stimulus was a motivating factor to trying to get even a lacklustre understanding of Magecraft even if I couldn't use it.

Dad's lessons continued, though now that he knew I was circuit-less he focused not on the practical side and instead on the things that could harm me. I learned an awful lot about how Dead Apostles work, and on just how someone as weak as myself could escape from them if I ever met one again.

On a side note, dad also started teaching me to use firearms. Only the basics though; how to fire, reload and clean a gun- that sort of stuff. He also showed me where the emergency weapons were in our new apartment- again, just in case. I was glad for the instruction, since even the Dead could be stopped by a couple of bullets to the head, _especially _if said bullet came from dads Thompson Contender.

XXXXXXXXXX

When my dad went on his next visit, I chose to take the next step. Again, I acknowledged that doing this was a risk, a terrible one, but I couldn't just put my fate in the hands of chance and luck. To preserve my life and live without fear, I needed to be strong enough to protect myself. Just knowing how to fire a gun and what threats were out there wouldn't help me. I needed _more_.

So I had to think hard. What methods were there of gaining strength without (Too much) risk?

There wasn't an easy answer. There was no simple way to get strong quick, besides becoming a Dead Apostle- where I would immediately become incredibly stronger and be able to develop supernatural abilities- but we could all tell that this was a stupid idea. Only a _moron _would give up their humanity and become one, especially since doing so earns the ire of the entire Magical community and would end up with the Enforcers after your ass.

Instead I eventually latched onto a single thing I could recall from when I played and watched Fate Stay Night- Shirou's artificial circuits.

He proved that he could make a Magic Circuit by forging them out of his nerves. It was painful and incredibly dangerous, to such an extent that Rin nearly had a panic attack when she found out that for years Shirou had made his circuits instead of opening them- _but I didn't have circuits to open! _

No, it was incredibly risky and dangerous to such an extent that I was barely able to go through with it from sheer panic and fear, but I remembered the helplessness of drowning in my fear when the Dead Apostle attacked or of stumbling through the Fuyuki Fire and I could do nothing to save myself from the Dead. So I didn't have a choice. I didn't even know if I could do what Shirou did, only that it was possible.

For all I knew you still needed Magic Circuits to be able to make Shirou's Nerve Circuits, but I didn't know. I could only try, and hope that the pain wouldn't kill me. Shirou lived through it for years (Probably by Avalon abuse) so the chance are that I could live through it too. I _had _to try!

So getting back on track, I began once my dad had left on his trip. I took advantage of his lack of presence to search through all his stuff without fear of repercussion. I found all his Magecraft textbooks and all of supernatural related books he had (And that he wouldn't let me read) and I began to read through them in his absences, before I returned the books when he was due to get back, none the wiser. No doubt he had more material, but I worked with what I had, and eventually I was ready to try.

The books didn't give me the answers I sought, because only an idiot would try to _deliberately _do what I was attempting, so all the tomes could do was tell me what I was _supposed _to do if I had actual Magic Circuits. Things like exercises to try and open the Circuits or allow Prana to flow through, or triggers you could use to turn them on and how to tell when you were using too much.

Eventually I decided that I would make my attempt. I had read the material, ensured that the school knew I was taking a leave of absence due to sickness (So none would interrupt or come looking for me if something went wrong), taken several pain killers pre-emptively just on the off chance that they could nullify the inevitable heart wrenching _pain _which would accompany the attempt, and had done everything else possible to prepare myself physically and mentally.

Then I did it. With a heavy heart and a knowledge that if I failed too badly I could seriously damage my body (_Fear of never walking again, of my nerves being utterly destroyed by my attempts_) I decided to try and make my Nerve Circuit- all to make sure that I would never be helpless and unable to fight back against all the things which I rightly feared.

Shirou wasn't kidding about the pain, but he was a tank, he under-exaggerated. I felt like I was being flayed alive, that my skin was melting and my bones cracking. My flesh was distorted and my throat nearly tore itself apart from the screams I gave (Luckily muffled to the neighbours due to the Bounded Field Kiritsugu had enacted around our apartment- one identical to the one at the Japanese Emiya estate that we had left- so nobody would hear my cries).

I felt like I wanted to die. No. I was terrified by the fact that the pain was driving me insane, and by the fact that I was so fundamentally _hurt _that I was willing to die. But I kept going. I kept trying to perform the exercises shown within the books for unlocking your Magic Circuits, though I adapted it for trying to convert my nerves instead. My underlying fear of those Dead and of all the things in the world that could hurt me in the Nasuverse and would hurt me pushed me on- burrowing through the literally nerve wrecking pain to remind me 'If you give up now and let the pain win, your fear will overwhelm you. You'll never be able to live without the fear, and the fear will consume you until the greatest fear of all claims you- death'.

Then I felt something click into place amongst all the agony. When I could no longer stand it and was about to give up lest I explode from the hurt, I could sense that something had changed. A thrumming surged through me, like a rod of iron had been inserted through my spine and was piercing into my whole nervous system.

Then the torture swelled into a crescendo, with the misery reaching a peak in my mind. I couldn't hold on any longer and was swept into the wonderful embrace of unconsciousness, where the pain could no longer touch me, now dulled.

XXXXXXXXXX

I woke to the sensation of pain and aching body, lying on the floor of the living room amongst my own sweat and- I took a deep sniff- my dried piss. I flinched at the thought. I had actually emptied my own bladder due to the experience.

For a moment I wondered what happened, then I recalled my attempts to make a Nerve Circuit. The books and paper strewn around the room reminded me of my attempt, as did the familiar ache in my back alert me to the fact that the pain hadn't fully gone yet.

At first I assumed that I had failed, pushing myself to the edge only to nearly die and only survive due to the Deus Ex Avalon in my body, since pain is bad so I couldn't have succeeded.

But then I could feel it, what the ache in my back signified. I pushed myself up to my knees with tremendous effort and clamped a hand onto my back, feeling a throbbing warmth through my hand that I knew wasn't really heat but something else.

Prana. I could sense it in my back, in the form of temperature- it reassuringly thrummed.

I latched onto this warmth and pulled a trigger inside me, imagining a lightbulb flickering into existence on a metaphorical level that is hard to explain, then the warmth began to flow through me. I could sense it through the throbbing.

I laughed in relief and happiness and pain.

A single path of Prana, flowing through my body. I laughed at the sole Nerve Circuit I had succeeded in forging in my body. Like it or not, I had done it. I was now a Magus. I could use Magecraft with this sole Nerve Circuit. And there was no turning back now, or stopping myself from continuing the harsh path I was walking. Since to be a Magus was to walk with Death, and I had already came too close to allow it to occur again.

**AN- So here is our first main character- Farrin Emiya. Now, with seven Inserts acting as the main leads for this fic I naturally desired for each Insert to be different in their own ways, and likewise I wanted each to represent certain clichés. Most SI's in the Fate genre (And even some non SI's) include a character falling into the Fuyuki Fire and being saved by Kiritsugu instead of Shirou, so here is our obligatory Fuyuki Fire survivor character!**

**However, I wanted some key contrasts with Shirou. Firstly, Farrin is a coward through and through. I am not overstating the fact that 'Fear' is a very crucial part of his character, so I figured it would be interesting to have a Self Insert who doesn't instantly go out of his way to be a badass hero but instead decides to run away from canon events- yeah, like _that _was going to go well for Farrin. Plus, I actually called him Farrin because the source I picked the name from says his name has connotations with 'blacksmiths'. On second look I can't rediscover this source and others are vastly different, but oh well. *Shrugs***

**In addition, I hopefully intend to do some interesting things with him in terms of abilities and so such (I always thought it odd that everyone dropped into the Fire just so _happens _to have Circuits, something very unlikely especially for someone from another world). **

**Now, long character insight aside, sorry for the long AN. Alas, I'll probably have a few off camera things to say concerning the other leads, but this is purely just additional content and not actually necessary for reading this fic. Still, the other inserts should hopefully be just as interesting.**

**One last thing- the question is still open concerning chapter release. Basically, do you want to read more about Farrin's adventures and see what he gets up to until just before the war, or would you rather take a glimpse at all the other tantalising characters yet to be explored? Your choice- feel free to drop a review on your opinion on this question, or even about this chapter itself. All critique is wonderful. Now, off to prepare for school. Undying Soul out.**


	5. Origins: Giselle I

**Chapter 4- Giselle I**

**AN- Here's another chapter- don't expect the next one for awhile since I will be indisposed for the next two weeks due to Real Life commitments, but hopefully this will tide you over. Alas, as you can see by the title, no Farrin. In the end pacing is best if all characters are explored bit by bit, while Farrins next instalment is being a pain to write. Instead, we get this. Now, anybody remember that one disabled guy introduced way back? Now, anyone want to know more? If the answer is yes you'll enjoy this chapter; if not then you'll probably still be pleasantly surprised since _I _for one liked writing it.**

**Disclaimer: I own only the Self Inserts and plot- alas hiring personal hitmen to assassinate and replace Nasu in order to hand the rights to yours truly _actually _takes money. Who'd a thought?**

Like lightning, my body jerked awake. My mouth opened to draw in oxygen, but found no air. Instead, some liquid based solution rushed down my throat as I awkwardly tried not to swallow it. The liquid surrounded me, as if drowning me, but eventually my struggle ceased. Anticlimactically, I took in the solution, and much to my shock I wasn't dying. I took another 'breath'. The feeling of not taking in a gas but instead this new substance was unnerving, but I certainly felt better than before.

I mean, I have no idea was clusterfuck happened before when that voice asked me if I wanted my legs back, but I was certainly conscious now, which was an improvement to the lightshow and after-affects.

I opened my eyes. At first I struggled to see through the red like liquid that was sticking to my (Apparently) naked form, but my eyes quickly adapted. I was surrounded by glass, as in a tube, so was lying down- no, floating- in this tight, see thorough coffin. I gulped- I wanted out right the _hell _now.

Then, I saw the other side. Stone walls, table filled with a tidy pile of books- several other containers. Some filled, some were not.

Hang on a moment-

My eyes saw the alignment of the furniture. I wasn't lying down like I thought. I was upright.

_I was upright!_

I wanted to squeal. I wanted to cry out. I wanted to dance a jig. I couldn't get my hopes up, but I was upright, so maybe, just _maybe_, the voice fulfilled its end of the bargain. Maybe my legs really were working now!

Through the obscured glass, a man strides confidently into my line of sight. He is as old as he is severe, with a long silver beard like a waterfall and a stern gaze. Dressed in colours virgin pure and accompanied by two others, he exemplifies the very nature of nobility. I had no idea who he was, but I could already tell he was someone that should be respected to and listened to above all else. Wise and knowledgeable, Master is-

Wait, why am I instinctively calling him 'Master'? Why do I think that? I've never met him. This isn't my opinion. I have no reason to believe this.

But before I could think further, he directed his gaze towards me. His eyes were cold like stones and as hard as them too. After regarding me for a few seconds and noting my awakened form, he spoke, in what I noticed to be German. "It appears that this side project has been a success."

Yet, I could somehow understand every word that he was saying.

The two women following him said nothing, so he continued. "You will be my triumph, Homunculus. You will allow me to attain the goal I desire above all else, Giselle."

Giselle? Who the hell is that? Wait, did he just call me that? And Homunculus, like from Fullmetal Alchemist or something?

"Sleep now." He commanded, and as he commanded, I did.

XXXXXXXXXX

When I next woke, it was not to see that I was on the inside of an oversized test tube, but instead that I was lying on a slab-like bed. The room around me was Spartan and empty, with only enough room for my bed, a door and a small barred window at the top of the wall adjacent to the thick wooden rectangle. Damn it, its a prison cell.

I sighed. Another box.

Rising slowly, I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and tried to get up. I noticed idly that I had been dressed in some sort of robes while I slept, but I was more interested in just where I was. I never actually expected that when that voice started doing a Madoka Magica on me that something like this would even happen.

Had I been kidnapped? Just where am I? What was up with that weird place I found myself in before? And more importantly, did my legs work.

I looked down at my lying down form, and willed my left toe to twitch. It had been so long since I had last moved it that I almost couldn't remember how. And it did. It definitely moved.

Eagerly, almost patiently, I tested each toe in amazement, and slowly I worked my way up until I was tensing the entirety of my legs.

It had happened. It really happened. I COULD MOVE MY LEGS AGAIN!

I started to laugh in relief and happiness and I think I was beginning to tear up too. Some part of me noticed that my voice sounded oddly high pitched to me, and that my legs seemed a bit too... shapely, for me, and didn't quite feel right, but what did I care?

I. COULD. MOVE. THEM.

I pulled myself up from my laid down position, and as my tears continued to gather, I pushed my legs over the edge of my hard bed (Hard, but feeling the sensation of anything down there was wonderful), and waggled my toes again.

Moment of truth now. I readied myself, and breathed in deeply, then I did what I wanted to do for so _damned _long. I stood up.

I almost fell over immediately, unused to standing, but I grabbed my bed and steadied myself.

I could stand.

Dare I hope? I moved my leg slowly, as if scared that it would fall off, and planted it in from of me. Still holding the bed, I put the other one in front of that one.

One small step for man, one giant leap for ME!

My tears were unrestrained now. I was truly _walking_. Now I was certain this was a dream, because this was too good to be true. I could die happy now, though I damn well intended to live long enough to finally fulfil that little foolish dream of walking across the beach with the sand between my toes.

I tried the door. It was locked and bolted. Well of course it was.

Oh well, even if I am in a prison cell, I could walk. Lets be optimistic about this, eh?

"Yup. Always look on the bright side of life." I said to myself, preparing to whistle the iconic tune. I stopped dead in the middle of the first note. I had been able to ignore the oddities in my situation due to the sheer _joy _of no longer being _limited_, but now that I was thinking about it, I couldn't shove it aside. This wasn't my voice.

I gulped, and brought a hand to my mouth. No. It wasn't mine- the lips were too soft. My hands traced the rest of my silk smooth face, and fingered the hair that was now falling down to my shoulders- it was _white _from the look of things.

"Oh no." I said, in that far too high pitched voice. "Not that."

Again, I swallowed nervously. This wasn't my voice, wasn't my face, wasn't my hair. So what else about me wasn't mine? And did I want to know?

Okay, silly question. Of course I did!

I looked down at myself, but this time I blocked out the single minded amazement at my legs and looked at the rest of me.

I was certain that my left eyebrow was twitching. No, it was definitely twitching. The right one proceeded to follow. Because there was one _very good question _that needed answering.

Why exactly did I have two giant lumps of flesh obscuring part of my view? In my chest area? That distinctly jiggled when I jumped up and down on the ball of feet?

My hands came to my mouth once more- I was starting to hyperventilate.

"Just why the hell... do I have _breasts_!?"

I prodded one of them, just to test them. Yes. They felt reasonably 'breasty'. I cupped them, I had to know. Squeeze Squeeze. Yup. Certainly seem to have breasts now.

I paled with dread and my hands groped much lower. I blushed at the contact, because something very important wasn't to be found in my fumblings.

My legs lost their strength and I fell back onto the narrow bed.

"'Just what are you prepared to loose?'" I quoted, referencing the voice from before. "Apparently a _damned _lot more than you said I would! Fuck you Kyubey! Fuck you! I want a refund! Hear me!? A REFUND! Legs are good and all, _but where the hell is my penis!_"

XXXXXXXXXX

After a good twenty minutes of shouting and cursing to the heavens, I concluded two things. One, that the room must be soundproofed, since not one person checked in to see who was swearing enough to make a Sailor blush. And two, I was most definitely a chick now.

I sighed in defeat. There was nothing I could really do at the minute. I had breasts now, and lacked... something... but that didn't mean I was any different. I didn't have any sudden urge to watch a chick-flick or any of those other womanly activities (Luckily), but in terms of biology it couldn't be denied. I seemed to be fairly... developed... in certain areas, and I think that this body was older than my last one.

"Fuck." I said, for like the sixtieth time. I stood up and began to pace my cell, not quite fed up with the novelty yet. "Sure, this situation isn't ideal, but look on the bright side- I did get what I wanted."

And yes, I was talking to myself. The lows that people fall.

Finally, with a groaning sound, the door opened. An ethereal, almost inhuman woman entered the room. She had white hair like me and was paler than a vampire, had ruby red eyes and was dressed like a maid for some reason. In addition, there was some aura of artificialness that surrounded her, as if she didn't truly belong.

"Mistress Giselle." She greeted in German with a formal bow. "I see that you are adapting well."

"Wh-what happened!?" I asked her quickly, somehow slipping into the same language despite not knowing a single word of it. "What's going on?"

The maid ignored my question. "The Master requires your presence, so you will follow me to see him. I have been instructed to bring you to him."

"But-"

Her eyes narrowed. "Jubstacheit Von Einzbern is not a man that should be kept waiting. Follow me."

She led me out of the cell and despite my sudden gender-bending, I didn't protest. Getting out of that cell was enough to bring me relief, and I had the feeling I'd get no answers if I asked questions. Besides which, the guy she mentioned had a long name- if anybody knew anything, it'd be him.

Still, I was distracted as I walked. I couldn't help but notice that the name Einzbern seemed familiar, and was just out of reach for my confused mind. I knew it, but I couldn't quite recall _why _it was so familar...

The woman led me through a few stone passageways lined with barred windows that highlighted a snowy courtyard when I was able to peer through, and then we were in a different section of the building. These corridors could only be described as opulent. Thick carpet, suits of dazzling suits of armour, paintings and statues lined with priceless gems, chandeliers of pure gold and windows that gleamed like glass. I had probably never owned enough money to even pay off the deposit on any one of the various trinkets that lined our path.

As we walked, I saw a few other people with hair the same colour as my own and the maid, but they didn't interact with us. A few smirked at me, knowingly, but they ignored us for the moment.

Finally, at the point where most of the wealth was compiled in a single large hall filled with ornate ceremonial armours and weapons, there stood a great, tall, metal door. Something was being given off from the door. I couldn't tell what, and had never experienced the sensation before, but beyond the steel frame lurked a great source of pressure and presence. Only then did I realise that I had been experiencing a much lesser pressure than this throughout the duration of our walk.

The maid approached the door and knocked twice. "Master." She spoke clearly. "I have brought the Container."

Container? What does she mean by that?

"Very good. Send her in." Resounded a firm voice I recognised as an authority figure.

"You will go in now, and you will be respectful or you will be punished." The maid said.

Gulping, I prepared to follow her instructions and after reaching the door, I turned the massive handle and pushed it. It looked heavy, but it was actually really light and opened with a heavy groan. Beyond was a dark room lit with candles and flaming torches.

The room was vast and tall, lined with desks, tables and bookshelves. Scientific equipment was set up throughout the room, and various experiments seemed to be running. In the centre of the dark room, sat Master on his chair. Gesturing for me to close the door behind me, I did as instructed-

_No. WHY am I instinctively doing as he says?_

"Welcome to my Workshop, the centre of my base of power, and the heart of my castle." Said Master as he rose sharply from his chair to stare me over, his gaze analysing me intently without a shred of shame. I suddenly felt very self conscious of his intense gaze, and crossed my arms over my large chest in embarrassment. I mean, how can any chick stand around or walk with these things? They just get in the way and seem so damned large that I can't help but be conscious of them.

"M-Master." I greeted, being forced to refer to him as such. It seemed like no matter how much I tried I couldn't call him anything else.

"I see you are still confused." He stated. "While at first I hoped that you had developed successfully, and at first appearance you were a success, it seems that there were some mistakes made during the conception process. Rest assured, this will be corrected at a later date."

"Conception process?" I asked. "What do you mean? Just who are you and why am I here? Who brought me here and why do I-" I couldn't blurt it out- it seemed a little crude just to shout out 'why do I have tits?'.

"Physically you are fine, but mentally the implantation procedure has had errors." He noted. A machine to his side whirred following his words, a mechanical pen writing down that which he was saying. "Memory recall perhaps damaged, or her mind has merely not accepted the memories and knowledge it needs."

"Hey!" I protested. "I _am _here you know. Stop treating me like I'm some experiment to be prodded at!"

"That is where you are wrong." He replied coldly. "You _are _just an experiment, and even in your present state I will not accept disrespect toward me. I am your Master and creator, you will respect me as such."

"Yes, master." The words came out involuntarily once more. He mentioned programming, does this mean he's rewritten my mind to make me do this or something? I don't know how he could, but after freaky Kyubey voices I could believe anything.

"Good. See that you remember your place. Now, despite your limitations, you can still serve your purpose. It will require more work on my own part, but this is salvageable."

"Still. Here." I reminded him with a scowl. Without another word, Master strode up to me until he was looking me dead in the eyes. Without warning his open palm lashed out and impacted with the side of my face.

"I told you, I accept no disrespect, Homunculus."

"Wait a second-" I blinked, rubbing my cheek where he hit me in shock that he had actually gone through with hitting me. He _hit _me. "a Homunculus?"

"Humph." Master walked away, back to his seat and turned back to face me like a shark with his eyes set on his next meal. "Yes. You are an artificial human produced by myself- a Homunculus. I am your creator, and as such it is your duty to serve me and the Einzbern family."

Serve? I serve _nobody! _I'm my own person damn it, and I'm not going to just sit here and let this man claim that he controls me!

"I warn you that next time you speak out, it will be a fist and not a palm. Don't make me... discipline you." He left the threat unspoken, but I shivered. It hurt when he slapped me, and I didn't much like the implication. Perhaps just this once I'd go against my nature and shut up while he talked.

"Normally your duties and and knowledge would be directly implanted into you during the artificial growth period, but in this area you have not. So I will explain your role." He paused for effect and to stroke his beard as he sat himself back down. "The Einzbern Family is a family of Magi, we practice Old Alchemy and once upon a time we attained the highest Miracle possible. Within these sacred halls the impossible occurred, and we carried the pride of an unmatched miracle. This family held the Third True Magic, the Heavens Feel, in the palm of our hands."

No. No. Just _no_. This can't be! I know I said that I could believe a lot, but _this_. I knew the name Enizbern was familiar, but I didn't want this! Is fate spitting on me or something? Want legs, well here, have some melons with that! What's the cost? Nothing much, just your dick! Think you're ready for anything, well now you aren't!

"However, long ago this Miracle was lost. This is an irredeemable crime." He growled, cold fury in his gaze. "A miracle was lost, and it is unthinkable that a family who's roots traces back to Humanities beginning has allowed this. Now, we will regain this glory, this power. We will not stand by idly and allow this shame to go unaddressed."

A miracle. I knew what it was. Damned right I did. It sounds unbelievable, but just like how I couldn't deny my new gender, I could not deny this new fact either. Somehow, despite all improbability, I hadn't been kidnapped or anything like that. This was not my world, nor had my legs just been 'fixed'. No. All I had done was leave behind my original form and enter a new one.

"Your role, Giselle Von Einzbern, is to bring glory to your betters and return this Miracle to its rightful owners! In five years time, the Fifth Holy Grail War will begin. I created you to act as a Master for this war, and to act as the Lesser Grail of this War after the last one _broke_ during the adjustment process." His eyes sparkled with relish.

The Holy Grail War, further proof. I remember reading about that war, and watching it to. I saw what happens first hand, and I saw just what its purpose was.

"She was unworthy to hold the contents of the Grail. You, while less perfect and efficient, were always designed to replace her should the need arise, and as such are still compatible for the role of the Lesser Grail."

And I could understand perfectly just what a Lesser Grail was, and just what implications came with Master claiming that I am one.

"You will summon a Heroic Spirit and you will _crush_ all those who stand between you and the goal. For far too long the Einzbern family has been mocked, well no more. This time we will win the War, and if you fail you _will_ be punished."

Because all the facts came together into one conclusion. The Einzberns, the Holy Grail War, Homunculi and Heroic Spirits: I was in the universe of Fate Stay Night, an anime series I greatly enjoyed watching while constrained to my chair. And apparently I had been selected to be the Einzbern Master in one of the Wars, and would inevitably die by the end of it. Either by the hands of an enemy, or by the hands of my creators due to just how shoddily my body was made.

I had one response. "Shit."

XXXXXXXXXX

A piece of chalk impacted with my head. "Ouch." I cursed gently, wincing at the pain I was feeling. Having something thrown at you hurts anyway, but when the thrower is a Homunculus physically stronger than any athletic human in existence and has a willingness to harm, then it's agony.

"Giselle Von Einzbern, are you listening?" Asked my teacher, an artificial woman just as otherworldly beautiful as any other in the castle that was my unwilling home.

"Well I am now." I retorted. She threw another piece at me.

"Oww!"

"It serves you right for backchat- Master does not approve of rudeness."

I grumbled but silenced myself, forcing myself to listen. Since finding out the truth of my situation, I had been immediately thrown into studies. All day I was taught whether I wanted to or not, informed of the history of our 'family' and of the duties and ideals I must uphold. I had the same teacher everyday, and Agnes was ruthless. She drilled me near constantly, gave no breaks and was always strict with me. It didn't matter that I didn't care about the topic, she would damn well force me to learn every little bit of pointless knowledge anyway.

"You are the Einzbern Grail. You bare a great honour-" honour my ass! "and as such must act in a way worthy of your responsibility. The Lesser Grail will be the one to hold the spirits of all Seven Servants once they have fallen in battle, and as such is the one responsible for manifesting the Grail and consequently the Third." She narrowed her eyes.

My eyes narrowed- she had mentioned this all before, and I disliked this as much as before. "You are therefore the one who will return the Miracle that the Einzbern family deserved, which is an honour in of itself. Therefore, you should act more becoming."

"Shut up." I growled, scowling at the woman in anger. "An honour? REALLY!? I am nothing more than a _sacrifice_! You mention my responsibility and how I should act, but in reality all I am is a pawn. My only purpose is to DIE! That's right, isn't it? I'm not as efficient as the last container- I can only absorb the energy of five Servants before my body is lost, and even if by a miracle I could hold all seven, I'd STILL die anyway to call up the Grail! So why should I care for being a 'proper lady'?"

I was a boy on the inside anyway, it was god-damned demeaning being forced to wear a dress. I don't care just how pretty I looked in it once I was allowed a mirror in my cell, I still didn't identify myself with being a girl, however good looking I actually was.

"So really, why should I listen, or care, or even try, when I'm just going to die anyway!?"

"Enough." Agnes' voice was clear an emotionless. "You must be more defective than I feared for you to dare insult the Einzbern family and our goal in such a fashion. You should be happy to die for our grand cause."

"No, I'm not. Because I am not a robot!" I shouted at her, rising from my chair in anger. "I'm nobodies pawn, and if you need me for the War, then what can you actually do to me, huh?"

My teachers face shifted, revealing the first facial feature change I'd seen in awhile. She smiled sadistically. "We can punish you. Break you. Make you cry, and make you hurt."

XXXXXXXXXX

Master looked down at me distastefully, removing the stained red gloves he had been wearing and tossing them onto the side desk of his workshop. I looked up at him hatefully, at the man that was keeping me trapped in this castle, and at the one who was going to send me to die. All he saw in me was a lamb ready for slaughter.

"I do so hate doing this." He noted, brushing down his trousers. "Doing manual labour is something that one of my status should not be forced to do."

Oh sure, he calls beating me black and blue 'manual labour'.

"But you gave me no choice, Giselle. You were made for a reason, and you _will _fulfil your purpose. I cared enough to give you life, so it is my right to take it away if I desire."

I merely continued to stare. I was too tired and hurt to respond, and even if I wanted to my programming would never let me say what I wanted to his face. While it was getting easier to at least think negatively about him, there were some things I was completely unable to do.

"Normally I would have a failure like you decommissioned for your blatant disrespect and refusal to conform or follow orders. However, you were the _fail-safe._ Ilyasviel was not supposed to die, and if she had you were designed to replace her." As such, he hadn't prepared a suitable vessel apart from me. At least not one of high enough quality to warrant him putting so much time into a defective model like me. He _needed _me. "There are no other vessels as high quality as you, so you are the tool I will use to win the Fifth Heavens Feel."

Its amazing just how much madness could be gleamed in the old man's eyes. He had pushed his body beyond all human limits and lived long after he should have died, rather similarly to Zouken. Indeed, both men were monsters on the inside, and Master had just as many 'worms' inside him as the Matou did. By now he cared only for three things: the continuation and power of the Einzbern Family, the retrieval of the Heavens Feel and obtaining a Win in the War.

His single minded desire to Win was unreal. It wasn't enough to just get the Grail or find the True Magic another way, he _had _to do it through the War. Some part of him would never let him rest until the Einzberns' had obtained an overwhelming victory in the war to counter all the crippling mistakes they had faced in the past.

"As such, I may not get rid of you. So if you continue to rebel, I will crush your spirit. I will destroy your will, and reduce you to nothing but a puppet of my own control." He paused, regarding my hateful expression. "A puppet makes for a bad Master though. So hate me if you want; I care not. Look at me with those eyes and silently continue your futile resistance if you desire- I will never let you escape. I will let you have these small, pointless oppositions against me, but should you openly defy you again, this beating will seem like a pleasant chat." He leered at me.

"You will be the Lesser Grail, and you will be the Einzbern Master, and you will eventually die for my goals. That is absolute. No doubt you will harbour thoughts of resistance and eventually try to rebel against me, but I anticipate this, and I will _destroy _all those futile hopes of freedom there and then." The ancient Magus knelt down to look at my bloody, swollen form, my beauty tarnished by the bruises marring my face.

"Do you understand, Giselle? In return for letting you keep these ridiculous dreams of freedom and minor opposition, you will obey me. You will prepare for your role to best of your ability, and will be the pawn I need you to be. So I ask again, do you understand?"

The man in front of me was the sole person responsible for my limited lifespan, was the reason why I would be sacrificed in a few years for a stupid piece of magic, and was the man who held the key to the cage I was trapped in. Like a pretty little bird, there was no escape from the constraints trapping me. As the one who put me within, Master would be someone that I always hated. Always.

"I understand... Master." I spat at him, accepting the conditions he had forced onto me, once more stripping me of my freedom by giving me no choice. For now I would be cowed- fighting back only harmed me. I would be quiet and listen to lectures, and I would be the tool he needed.

Though make no mistake- I hated him. And I would get revenge and fly away from this cage. If he was going to be stupid enough to allow my futile resistance, then when the time comes I will struggle, fight and escape. I'm not sure, not sure when, but I will make that once chance that he allows me count. Somehow. I will leave this box I am trapped in.

Jubstacheit Von Einzbern smirked at my answer, and left me in a pool of my own blood to go have his dinner. I'd survive until he returned following dessert to finally allow me medical treatment, once his appetite was sated.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Alone at last." I sighed in happiness, speaking to myself as I had begun to do to try and deal with my crippling loneliness. After my last beating, I had knuckled down and upheld my end of the bargain. In return, I was allowed to leave my cell when not studying and walk about the castle with limited restrictions.

Right now I had decided to go outside, into the large courtyard at the centre of the Castle. It was dark by this time of night, and nobody was about, just as I liked it. Being in the heart of the German mountains, the Einzbern castle was always unnaturally cold, and today was no exception. My breath left my mouth in a cool cloud, and even with my unnatural toughness as a Homunculus I could feel the cold seep into me.

I smiled. _I guess that's what I get for going outside in this weather wearing only a thin dress_.

Despite my best attempts, I was still forced to wear a dress. Though over the last six months since I first woke up able to use my legs I had been forced to get used to them- to my ire. It just felt _odd _not having anything covering all my legs, and in general girl clothes were strange and foreign. My bust, for example, required I wear a _bra. _It was ironic that the first time I unstrapped a bra it was my own, and even then I felt ridiculous trying to do it.

I doubted I would ever get used to being a girl- or at least I hoped I'd never get used to it. I couldn't bare the idea that one day I would wake up and stare into the looking glass and not see a beautiful strangers face looking back.

But look on the bright side- I was artificial, so lets thank my lucky stars that this translated over to mean that I would never age and never get a period. God knows just how awkward and mentally scarring it would have been for me to wake up and find myself bleeding _down there_.

"Still, its beautiful tonight." I spoke out loud, watching the stars. Far away from civilisation, there was no light pollution to obscure the night sky, and I could see constellations and a million tiny diamonds light up the horizon.

The snow fell around me, as it normally did here, and left a thin lair of powder snow all across the ground.

"Well, here goes nothing." I had been wanting to do this for weeks now, but I hadn't had the chance to do so until now. Tentatively, I slipped off the footwear I had been provided, putting them to one side, and stepped forwards onto the snowy ground. It was impossibly cold and made me cringe, but it was still miraculous to feel anything, and I was happy to bear the discomfort just so that I could feel the white power between my toes.

This was my cage, and it was a pretty one, being larger than my old box, but it was a prison never the less. So I would likely never achieve my dream of walking across a sunny beach, feeling the sand between my toes.

But walking across an empty courtyard, with my eyes closed and snow surrounding me, was the closest I would ever get.

"I'm at the beach now." I said, shutting off all the light I was receiving, and began to slowly tread across the ground, hearing the light CRUNCH of compressed snow. "Its warm, the sun shines and I am happy."

Oh what a lie. In reality it was near Arctic, with me being in the middle of a snowstorm within a German mountain range. In truth, the sun was long gone and the moon and the stars were my own companions. And I was undeniably _un_happy.

What a joke- I couldn't be further from where I wanted to be. But I had taken the deal, and all the negatives it had entailed. I had given up much, and gained only legs in return. So I would deal with it, and I would free myself from my chains.

But that would come later. For now, I would continue to delude myself and keep walking across the beach, the sand between my toes.

**AN- Behold Giselle, the next of the Inserts. She/he, like Farrin, represents some elements of the Self Insert genre- namely gender bending. This trend crops up occasionally and I felt like tackling the issue semi-realistically while I had the chance, resulting in Giselle. I needed an Einzbern representative for the war and the surplus of homunculi gave me an easy way to have the space filled.**

**Giselle her/himself is a character who fundamentally desires freedom. While Farrin single handedly seeks to escape his fear, Giselle only wants to spread his/her (God this is getting annoying) wings. I decided that Zouken isn't the only dickish old man in the setting, so I figured that now was a good chance to breed some conflict and give Giselle an adversary for her to pin her hate on, as well as to give her a reason to try and participate in the Grail War- namely to escape his influence and maybe get the limited life expectancy of her/his body sorted. Interestingly, her name Giselle is derived from the Germanic form Gisil, meaning hostage/pledge according to my sources, so it seemed like an apt German name.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that it was a nice contrast to the whiny self pity of Farrin last chapter (I for one loved writing the scene where he discovered his payment Eyebrow waggle). Anyway, I'm off to speed run drama lines, so feel free to drop any criticism or requests for next chapter- I already know who next chapter belongs to now that I'm going with the 'split up' route, but it'd be cool to see who you guys look forwards to reading about the most. Undying Soul out.**


	6. Origins: Kieran I

**Chapter 5- Kieran I**

**AN- Welcome to another chapter of the HFW. Now, just as a brief reminder for any fans getting confused on characters:**

**Farrin- Dropped into Fuyuki Fire, taking Shirou's place.**

**Giselle- Einzbern Hommunculus brought in after Ilya died during 'modifications'.**

**Not Rin- mindjacks a young Tohsaka Rin.**

**False Archer- A cosplayer whom is summoned by Casters original Master as Archer, taking the form of anime character Mami.**

**James- dropped straight into Kotomine Church.**

**Hikaru- role not yet revealed. Clue: which major Fate characters haven't I tackled yet?**

**And finally Kieran, whom is a Fraga born instead of Bazett. This chapter is his, by the way.**

**Disclaimer: Nasu owns all; worship him as the lore giving god that he is, then curse his name as the procrastinating devil he is! Where the HELL is the Tsukihime remake, let alone the sequel!? **

I remembered when I was five- specifically the fifth year in my second life. I was partaking in my favourite past-time of reading. That hadn't changed between lifetimes. Once upon a time I read sci-fi, fantasy and fanfics, but now I read tomes of arcane knowledge and supernatural insight- so pretty much the same thing.

It was a warm day in particular that I was thinking of- the kind where you really can't be bothered to do anything besides laze around and waste the day. I _couldn't _laze around though. There were still shelves upon shelves of books in the Clan library that I had yet to devour, and I needed to know everything- Knowledge is power, and even if it wasn't, the material was hardly as dry as you would expect.

"Kieran." Greeted my father as he left the house and began to walk to my destination- the better shaded spot besides the large oak tree close to our house. I liked the spot because I had good shade for reading and because I had a wonderful view of the sea (Seeing as our village and houses were alongside the cliff and beach of the coast), so I liked to just look out and smell the salty breeze sometimes.

"Good afternoon father." I said dutifully. My family was but one of many Magi, and while we were hardly the heirs to the clan or anything ridiculous like that it was expected that children would have respect for their elders here. In fact all families here were equal (Another vast divergence from typical Magus society) and its only those with the most talent and ability who are selected to lead the clan. I played along with the village customs mostly because I didn't want to stand out, though my new father was deserving of said respect.

He was one of the five most knowledgeable men in the village and had the fourth largest number of Magic Circuits in the village, so was an exceptional Magus. I was glad that he was my father if only for the fact that by being his son he was teaching me all sorts of useful things.

In addition to being an excellent Magus, he was also as good a father as I could hope for in this life, and made time to personally check on me whenever he could.

"I see you're outside reading again." He noted, reaching my position and sitting down besides me to look out to the sea. I put my book aside with the bookmark in (An interesting tome on the principle mechanics of chaining Runes) and gave the tall man besides me my full attention.

"Yes. I really think I'm making some progress." I informed, missing out the fact that I wished I was going faster than just having _some _progress. If I was always this slow then I would never become powerful enough quickly enough.

"So what are you reading?" He asked inquisitively, pushing his thick brass glasses up along his nose as he looked over the worn hardback I had been consulting.

I smiled. Aodh Fraga McRemitz _tried _to be a good father, but I honestly think he sometimes didn't know how to treat me, so asking after my study progress was the only way he had of showing that behind his gruff exterior he actually _cared. _Though whether he cared or not mattered little, eventually I'd have to leave the clan in order to become a member of the Clock Tower, and I knew for a fact that deserters were not allowed to return to the clan after leaving.

"Its actually rather interesting." I remarked. "I know how runes interact and can add to each other to amplify affects, but I hadn't realised how tricky it is to link multiple chains..."

I continued to explain what I had discovered while Aodh listened intently, occasionally interjecting to hear what I found the most interesting and to see what I wanted to study next.

Eventually I finished explaining and we lapsed into silence. After a minute or two of just awkwardly watching the rhythmic rolling of the ocean, the pink haired man spoke up once more.

"You know, sometimes my wife and myself don't know what to do with you." He commented idly, still not looking me in the eyes. "You are the best son a man could wish for- you are curious, intelligent to the point of being a prodigy, driven, strong willed and respectful, never making trouble even as a baby- but your mother can't help but be worried sometimes."

"Oh." I said, not knowing what to say. It wasn't like I could just drop the bombshell 'Hi- I'm a _twenty nine year old man _stuck in a five year olds body', could I? It was obvious that I'd be different to any normal child my age. There wasn't much I could do to counter this abnormality besides hiding my intelligence and ability, and there was no way in _hell _that I'd do anything to stop me learning as much as I can possibly learn.

"She worries that you don't go out and play." The man admitted sheepishly. "Personally, I'm glad you are so studious and take such a dedicated approach to our families duty of upholding the knowledge of our lineage, but she feels that it is... strange... that you never want to go out and play and that you spend all your time reading or practising Magecraft."

"I just don't like any of the other kids." I argued. "They're immature and stupid- I'd rather carry on my studies."

"Even so, I don't suppose you can play with them sometimes? Just to please your mother, of course."

"Sure." I told him with a fake smile, lying through my teeth. I was NOT going to spend my childhood playing hopscotch and tag; I'd sooner drink paint, since it'd be far less painful. "I'll try and play more."

"Good, good." He said, clapping me on the back. "I admit that makes me glad. Sometimes even I think you are scarily devoted to your studies. That you are... different. Not bad!" He quickly reaffirmed at my raised eyebrow. "Its just different. So maybe you should enjoy your childhood some more since you can always study when you are older."

"Of course, father. Its not like I'll ever magically get to relive my childhood or anything." I said with a straight face, prompting Aodh to grin.

"That's my boy. That's my boy. Right, well try not to push yourself and worry your mother. Even so, well done for your studies so far- I'm very proud of you."

"Thanks." I replied without enthusiasm- I still had a looonnng way to go.

XXXXXXXXXX

I was eight when I was first given the chance to begin working towards the creation of the Fragas' fabled Noble Phantasm, Fragarach, and I had to admit that it was the most difficult thing I had ever worked on.

There was a reason why only one member of the clan was allowed to inherit it despite multiple people possessing the Sorcery Trait Tradition Carrier- because its _stupidly difficult. _I had initially assumed that multiple people could learn to use it, but ultimately only one person per generation is taught it via the elder user, and I was only picked due to my vast growth rate.

It didn't change the fact that this was the trickiest thing I'd worked with, since while I could own and _use _Fragarach, I also had to _make _the thing. To do this, I had to combine all sorts of obscure areas like alchemy, runes, Formalcraft and even Spiritual Binding to create its physical form and bind the power and _concept _of Fragarach to it. Afterall, Like, Bazett in canon had more copies of the Noble Phantasm than you could shake a stick at- now imagine how mad it is trying to make _multiple copies of a Noble Phantasm, _something typically unique.

So progress was slow, but I persisted. The time put in would be worth it, due mainly to Fragarach's ability. Whereas most Noble Phatasm's tend to fall into vague powers like 'laser death beam', 'poison strike' or 'impossibly sharp', the Fragas' pride and joy had only a single ability- to produce an attack capable of countering any attack with a fatal, unblockable blast, utterly stopping even the strongest of abilities. It didn't matter how tough your magic sword attack is if you are dead before you get the chance to unleash it.

So yeah, getting it was vital. If I was going to go through with my plan of becoming a Dead Apostle and taking part in the Holy Grail War then I would _have _to have access to an ability like that to make me a threat to others and protect myself. and

As such, it was only just before my tenth birthday that I was allowed to perform the ritual itself.

I knelt within a vast runic circle. Lines of coded vocabulary flowed around the dimly glowing edges and criss-crossed in specific patterns across the floor- some of the runes themselves moved slowly from place to place while some aspects of the circle were closer to a sphere given how runes also needed to be applied on a 3D plane.

When I said this was hard, I REALLY meant hard. Like, impossible maths question at university level difficult.

Even so, I was ready.

To my side, the middle aged man currently holding the rights to Fragarach (And apparently my third uncles cousin or something due to how closely related and almost borderline incestuous my family was) gave me the thumbs up to start.

I visualised a tap turning on (My mental trigger) and my Magic Circuits turned on, thrummin with power inside of me as they lit up and began to channel my inner prana- Od- while the specific runes in the borders of the circle absorbed excess mana from the air to further fuel the spell. I licked my lips and began to chant.

"Oh Ancestors great, thy blood flows in my veins,

Of Divine right and choice, thou power rest within.

Of Ages past, blood spilled and forgotten,

This blood remembers- what was lost, and what is to be gained."

After the first stanza, the blue light of the circle began to glow brighter- its intensity growing, showing that the ritual was working. Blood has a will, and as such needed to be persuaded that I was worthy and had earned the right to use it.

"A promise made, an agreement I call upon,

Thou shalt give what is owed- this Geas must be fulfilled.

With sacrificial blood as payment, hear this decree:

Bestow me with this honour, oh mighty Lugh!"

I took the Azoth Sword at my side (A traditional Magus tool normally given to an apprentice after finishing their studying, but in this case borrowed for this task), and cut a deep ridge into my palm. Sitting in the centre of the circle was a large ball of pure lead, and I angled my hand so that my palm was directly above it. I ignored the pain and clenched my hand.

One drop...

Two drops...

Three drops...

The colour of emitted light shifted across the spectrum, glowing the colour of fresh blood. The lead ball levitated into the air before me and began to thrum as the ritual took affect.

"Blood of the Ancestor, voice of the present,

I call upon thy power, Gouging War God.

Cleanse this metal of impurity, and take it as your body,

With blood let thee take this form, thine spirit empower it."

I began to sweat, struggling to keep control of the ritual as my blood continued to drip onto the rotating sphere of lead, darkening the metal as its fundamental composition was changed by the runes in the air and my will- becoming something unknown, an element unknown to any Periodic Table and which would only be formed within this one ritual- a material who's sole purpose and concept for existing was to 'Be That Which Is Forged Into Fragarach'.

The floating runes enclosed it, circling around it planets trapped in order about the sun. Now was the vital part- binding the various aspects of this ritual into one final form, which then needs to simmer for a month before concluding.

"I name thee Glory, thee that Answers.

I call thee Power, thee that Retaliates.

Forged by gods, wielded by Manannan, inherited by Lugh,

Passed onto Cúchulainn, bestowed upon Conn of the Hundred Battles!"

I breathed in deeply, opening up the 28 Circuits I could presently use up to their maximum output, allowing the ritual to reach a peak- power visibly distorting the air as it was rapidly condensed into the ball of lead.

"I claim mine legacy, that which is owed!

I am of the Wise, of those who carry the Words of History,

I am FRAGA! And I claim thee as my own!  
I proclaim you Fragarach: Gouging Sword of the War God!"

Every Rune in the circle exploded with light, and the inherent power dormant in my blood awoke and conceded my birthright- flowing into the malleable form of the lead. It was no longer just metal, but now Fragarach given a form- a weapon capable of killing any being so long as I can force it to go all out first.

The lights dimmed and the Runes stilled- fading away as their purpose was complete, save for those adorning the floor as they still had a role to play. The incomplete Noble Phantasm continued to float despite the effect of Gravity, suspended by its own ability, absorbing the power and concepts the remaining runes held and would continue to gather for thirty days and thirty nights.

After this- Fragarach would be complete.

I stepped out of the circle with relief, a shit eating grin plastered on my face. Sitting in that circle was the first of the many weapons I would come to need and use... and it felt glorious, to hold such a rare thing in my possession. A Noble Phantasm... all mine! I'd laugh if it wouldn't seem totally evil to my elder.

"Well done Kieran." He told me with pride. "I knew you could do it- we all could. That's why we allowed you to inherit this- why we allowed you to be taught. You are possibly the greatest prodigy we have seen for the last two hundred years, and we are all proud that you will hold this responsibility and one day come to wonderful things for this clan. I can no doubt see you someday taking reign of this Clan, if events permit it."

"Indeed- great things." _Terrible yes, but great._

Because unfortunately, they were all wrong. I would not carry the responsibility of this clan. I was not the pride and joy they thought I was and groomed me to be. No- I was a liar seeking impossible things, and in five years time upon reaching my fifteenth birthday I will leave the Fraga clan for good to become a Freelancer for the Mages Association.

Taking my Noble Phantasm with me.

Being the sole inheritor of it.

Having already been picked to be my generations sole wielder of the weapon, the only one capable of giving it to the next generation for so long as I was alive.

The Fraga would never again forge Fragarach after I left and the man before me died- because without me to teach it, they _literally could not physically let another be taught it. _I was damned well stealing this legacy for myself, and I wasn't going to give it back.

Ain't I stinker?

… I definitely wasn't feeling guilt over this. Nope- definitely not. Because I was probably going to take advantage of a sure-kill Noble Phantasm more than this stagnant clan ever was, so wasn't I well within my right to take it? Right? _Right? _

So why did I still feel some amount of pain in my gut at the thought of what I was going to have to do to accomplish my goals?

XXXXXXXXXX

Time did as it normally did and passed- I blinked then it seemed like three years had passed.

I was thirteen now. In the community I not the most sociable person, but I was liked and respected for my sharp intellect, quick ability to learn, and mature aura that befitted someone much older than myself. I wore a mask of smiles and polite respect, of diligent vitality and vigilance- a desire to uphold the honour and values of our Clan and learn all that I could about what we had been taught.

Inside however, I was panicking and impatient. I paced my mind like a lion in a cage and swore with every lie I told- everything about me was a lie I had specifically forged for effect. To try and be the child my parents wanted, the Magus people expected, the inheritor of Fragarach everybody admired, and a person truly loyal to the good of the clan.

"Bullshit." I muttered to myself, sitting besides the tree that no longer seemed quite so tall as it once had, looking out to the sunset illuminating the sea like fire. I allowed Prana to flow through my body even as I let myself relax, having recently decided to start pressing on with Reinforcement (A Magecraft geared towards strengthening an object, in this case my own body) in anticipation of my future career.

"Loyal as a Frey, as honest as Littlefinger and about as honourable as _Joffrey_."

Sometimes I just liked to take off my façade when I was alone, just to remind myself why I fought.

"I don't want to carry on the duty of the Fraga Clan. I want to run off and become a Freelancer. I only want _power_." I sighed. "There is nothing wrong with that. Humanity isn't inherently evil- just selfish. And there is _nothing _wrong in trying to be at the top of the food chain, especially in a fucked up universe like this."

I needed to master and learn everything I could before the next two years were up if I wanted any chance of being able to carry out the plan I had constructed over the last decade of intense personal thinking- after fifteen I would be pushed to get to where I needed to be.

Regardless of personal feeling or potential guilt, I couldn't halt my quest for more power. One way or another, in two years time I would be gone.

XXXXXXXXXX

I walked into my house to see an unexpected sigh- the woman who had birthed me was crying at the table. This was an unexpected sight, since my 'mother' was normally rather cheery. As a vast contrast to my stern and distant (For the most part) father, Fiona Fraga McRemitz was a woman who was far too nice to be a true Magus. She coddled me and cared for my health, always wore a smile on her face and hugged me every day even though I found it really uncomfortable, and was always the one to insist that I put down my books and stop studying to take a breather.

I respected her. I liked her. Hell, if I had not already had a prior mother I would probably have adored her since she was the kind of woman whom you can't help loving.

So seeing her sobbing over a bottle of Aodh's personal alcoholic collection (The Fraga's are an _Irish _Clan! Of _course _they have alcohol!) was quite a sorry sight.

Normally I try to avoid soppy stuff or even bonding moments since I was trying to disassociate myself from the family I was going to abandon soon, but Aodh had been called away for a Clan business away from the village to deal with some traders in order to ensure we had our regular supply deliveries to the village proper, so I couldn't rely on him to deal with the sobbing woman.

"Ummm... mother, are you okay?" I asked awkwardly, entering the room.

"N-no." She cried, "I'm not."

"Mother, why are you _drinking_? You never drink. And why are you crying?" 

"I just couldn't help it." She sniffled. "There was some lying about from before, so I thought I'd try some, and then some more, and some more, and then I just started to cry."

I went over to her and gave her a few light pats on the back. It appeared my 'mother' was a sobbing drunk, the type who always cries whenever they have alcohol inside them. No wonder 'father' always keeps her away from the stuff at village events.

"Ummm... there, there?" I continued to pat her, not knowing what to do. "Everything will be alright."

"Kieran, do you love me?" She asked suddenly.

"Of course I do." I told her with my signature smile. "You're my mother, a wonderful one, and I love you."

She only cried harder.

"What's wrong already?" I irritably said, wishing I had just stayed outside to read some more instead of coming in due to the sun already falling from the sky.

"_This_. Why do you keep lying to me?"

The words hit me like a sledgehammer. _Wait... she KNOWS that I'm lying!_

"Lying? What do you-"

"See! Right there!" She pointed at the reassuring smile I was wearing. "When you smile, it never reaches your eyes. Did you know that? Whatever you say, it feels _hollow _somehow. I tried to ignore it when you were young, thinking that your odd behaviour was just due to your intelligence, but I _can't_. You- you aren't normal."

I recoiled. She wasn't really my true mum, but hearing something like that just feels _wrong _on some level. This woman had always tried her best for me, so hearing her acknowledge that felt like something vital and precious had been lost- something irreparable and irreplaceable shattered.

"I- I love you, and you are my son, but you aren't right. You don't... you don't love me, do you?"

"Don't be stupid moth-"

"Do. You. Love. Me?" She gave me a fierce glare from amidst tears that would be more at home on the face of an eagle. "Tell it right to my face."

"I. Love. You." I told her, wrapping my arms around her in a hug, trying to put as much emotion into my words and onto my face as possible. I cared for her, and I didn't want this woman to be sad. I didn't need to, but I desperately wanted her to believe that I truly loved her, if only to soften the blow for her and give her some form of condolence once I'm gone.

"I don't believe you." She whispered, pushing me away and rising unsteadily to her feet. "I don't believe you."

"Mother..."

"No. Its okay." She said, forcing herself to try and smile. "Even if you don't love me and lie to me, you are my son, and I will always protect and love you with all my heart. You aren't the son I dreamed of, but you are _mine_. Just know that, okay? Mother loves you, so please don't worry! I won't tell anyone that you're lying, so smile, okay?"

"Look... I... I..." I was lost for words, I didn't know what to say. What _could _I say? She was right. I didn't love her, and I was manipulating everyone around me into thinking me loyal just so that they wouldn't expect me to abandon my responsibilities.

"I accept you, whatever is really behind that mask, okay?"

That hopeful look on her face... I knew that regardless of what I said, she would know that the person I showed was a fake. But she was fine with that, had accepted that. Fiona... no... mother... knew that at the end of this there would only be disappointment, but would do what any mother would do, even for a fake child like me, and hide her disappointment and knowledge for my sake.

For that alone, the selfless decision to support a false son, I had to acknowledge her. She wasn't my mum, but she birthed me and worried about me and hated herself for doubting and not seeing the perfect mask everyone else did- and she _accepted _me.

"Mother." I stated simply, meaning the title this time. "I can't promise anything, but thank you."

"I'm... I'm glad." She hiccuped a little, before she put the bottle she had been drinking to one side and staggered past me to head upstairs to her room.

I watched mother go and wished for the first time that I had just died when I was supposed to, because then this woman might have had the son that could love her. And she of all people deserved that.

XXXXXXXXXX

The next day mother woke up, smiled and hugged me, informing me that she still had a headache from the day before and that she couldn't remember a thing that she had gotten up to after mistakenly deciding to drink.

To all extents and purposes she couldn't remember a single word of what she said when she was drunk, which was good for me since that meant she hadn't yet voiced her suspicions out loud.

However, from that look in her eyes when she looked at me, I somehow knew that she was deluding herself about her memory just as much as I was deluding the world about my goals.

Either way, I couldn't let her words distract me now that time was starting to run out. Today I was going to start studying the basics of Geass contacts, so that I at least had a passing knowledge by the time I got to the Clock Tower and could get specialised treatment in their construction.

I let myself out of the house, book in hand, and put thoughts of my mother to one side.

XXXXXXXXXX

"You have officially completed your training." Spoke my teacher grandly and with proud affection as I knelt before him. "Its been long and hard, but you have mastered everything I and my peers have to offer you. While unpolished, your skills are undeniable. Perhaps there are minor holes, but your knowledge is unquestionable. I can not deny that you have succeeded in mastering Runecraft, Reinforcement, Fragarach and in everything else we have had knowledge of. So rise."

I stood to my feet and bowed deeply, feeling pride of my own for succeeding in what I had promised myself I would do by my fifteenth birthday- and with fifteen days to spare too. I was no longer an Apprentice but a true Magus.

"As recognition I present you this Azoth Sword, a ceremonial blade designed specifically for use in ritual and rune carving- as a symbol of your successes and as proof that you are a Fraga. Stand and be proud, for you are no longer a child or an Apprentice, but a Magus I can be proud to call an inheritor of our traditions."

"I thank you humbly, master." I told him, smiling happily as I accepted the long knife. Unlike Rin's knife, this one was not made from Tohsaka jewels. This Mystic Code (An amplification tool used in Magecraft) was black and thin, with its bladed section being almost rectangular in shape with a triangular edge to better allow it to carve. The handle itself was comfortable in my hands and wrapped in red, purified bindings altered to better act as a conduit through which I could channel prana into the tool.

Runes were also carved into the cheek of the weapon: Ingwaz (Meaning the actualisation of potential), Othalon (As in inheritance), Mannaz (For augmentation and support), Berkanan (Referring to growth) and Tiwaz (Which translates roughly to victory and honour).

"As you can clearly see, upon this sword I leave you a message that I am sure you can understand. I saw you begin as a boy and have seen you leave a much greater one- I believe you have reached your full potential, and am proud of you for this." I basked in the praise- after all the work I had put in and the harsh training I had endured in my desire to better myself quicker than everyone else, I deserved a moment or two of pride.

"As such, you have been proven worthy of inheriting the legacy of Clan Fraga, and will be welcomed into the Magus of the family with open arms. I give you this weapon in the hope that it brings you support and allows you to better your own Magecraft, allowing you to grow farther than the narrow limits of what I have taught you. And I hope that all this leads you to victory, and that consequently you can die happy and with honour."

"I will always treasure this blade." I told him, tucking it into the simple sheathe handed to me along with it. With this a part of my life was over, and soon I would move on. This blade would serve as a reminder of all that I learned and proof that I _have _become stronger, more powerful than many would ever become concerning my mastery of runes and a Noble Phantasm.

It wasn't enough though. I needed to become _stronger_.

But even so, there was nothing wrong with holding onto such a memento, especially one as useful as this.

"You are dismissed." The man told me, and I complied, rushing out of the building the majority of my tutoring was done within. I had preparations to make, and a journey to begin.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was the dead of night and all rational folk were asleep in bed. The dark sky was clear, and no light fell from the heavens. It was a New Moon, luckily only a few days after my birthday, so this was the best time for me to make my move- when there was the least light in the sky to illuminate me and when people had the least reasons to suspect me.

It was unquestionable, in a few moments time I would pick up the bag that I had packed and hidden under my floorboards over two months ago, I would walk downstairs into the quiet night and I would vanish from this settlement like a phantom, hopefully never to be seen again.

It would cause an outcry never before been seen in this village; an outcry of such intensity that I would be forever remembered in the annals of Clan history as 'he-that-betrayed'. I would be like Madara, Orochimaru and Itatch all rolled up into one- a devastating loss that nobody would have seen coming and that no one would be able to forgive.

I was going to steal Fragarach- I was going to take the large cylindrical container with four of my Phantasms that had been stored in the village storage shed for 'safe keeping', and I was leaving with the sole right to produce it in my generation.

There was a high probability that they would send people after me. Assassins, mercenaries, family and spies: all to kill me so that the right of Fragarach would be left unclaimed and could be rewarded to someone far more loyal.

"Let them come." I whispered, checking my watch for the last time before I took my rucksack and strapped it to my back. "They'll take it from my cold, dead body or not at all."

I tip-toed down stairs and took one last look about the place that had been my home for fifteen years, then I slipped out the back and towards the village proper.

It was easy to break through the Wards defending the building since I had personally been taught how to deactivate them like every other accepted Magus in the Clan, and I obtained all the extra supplies I needed in addition to my Phantasms'. Money, goods, food and more besides- I was truly ready to leave.

But before then, there was one last thing left to do. Quickly checking that the coast was clear I crept to my tree, the one I had spent oh so many hours reading besides. In the darkness I could only vaguely see the rolling and froth of the ocean battering the cliffside, but the sound was familiar. In the moonless sky stars twinkled without light pollution to mask them. The sight was beautiful- I had to see it one last time.

"You're leaving for good, aren't you?" Asked a familiar voice from behind me.

"Shit!" I cursed, spinning. The glove on my left hand flared to life as I reflexively activated my Circuits and sent Prana to activate the array upon it to send out a blast of pure force that I had partially based off/partially ripped off a certain Chicago based Wizard PI. I stopped at the last moment before firing, recognising the woman that had snook up on me.

"How did you find me, mother?" I asked quietly, though part of me knew the answer. The familiar shape in the darkness belonged to the housewife of a Magus- one herself. While she had a larger heart than most and wasn't cut out to be a Magus, she was _still _a practitioner, and a good one at that if rumours were to be believed. I wouldn't put it past her to have used some sound muffling Runes and a collection of others on her clothing to reflect or distort light to effectively camouflage her.

"I've been expecting this for a few weeks actually." Mother admitted, walking through the darkness until she was only a few paces away from me. "Some part of me always knew that you would never stick around, and I found your supply bag early on."

"Does father know?" I questioned.

She responded confidently. "No."

I sighed in relief. At least the strict parent didn't know, and wasn't already waiting with the other Magi to break my bones for attempting to escape the Clan.

"So you really are going through with this treachery, abandoning the clan?" She asked.

"Yeah, I am." I told her honestly- that women shared many qualities with my real mum, which included her ability to inspire guilt.

"Since when?"

"This has always been my goal." I remarked, looking out to the black ocean. "From the very moment I began to learn Magecraft I knew that I would have to leave the village, that the two of you would be disappointed."

"I see." Were those... were those _tears _dripping down mother's face. "Go." The single word slipped out of her mouth with great difficulty.

"I said _go_." the Magus repeated with great hesitance- a hardness never needed before gripping her. "Leave, and I will not raise the alarm. Whether you succeed in leaving or not is in your own hands." 

A single emotion bombarded me- shock. I had not predicted this. Mother was still a Magus. From an early age she had been indoctrinated like everyone else, she subscribed to the idea of the Clan being greater than the individuals. She would give her life like anyone else here for the good of the majority, and I knew that she had just a strict view on deserters as everyone else did.

So the fact that she was letting me go was staggering. She was turning her back on her principles, on the Clan she had devoted her life and family to, lying to everyone and aiding a traitor, being the absolute opposite of a Magus.

"M-mother."

"Go." She said once more in a shaking tone. The sobs were non verbal, as she refused to release the cries- even so, her shoulders and entire form shook. "Go."

This wonderful woman was letting me go. "You will never know just how much this means to me." I told her. "I'll always remember this, so goodbye, mother."

"Goodbye." And like that mother had turned around and slipped into the night, her Runecraft masking her from all five of my senses. Like the breeze she had left as suddenly as she came.

"Bye." I stated one last time long after she left. This was not just a goodbye to the woman I could acknowledge as my mother; this was a farewell to the quiet, peaceful life I had partaken in for so many years; it was au revoir to the mask I had worn for so long; it was sayonara to everything that had come before it- 'so long and thanks for all the Magic'.

But most importantly, it was also a 'Hello'. The casual, trivial acceptance that something new and terrible was about to begin.

After activating a slip of Runed cloth found inside my travel coat to limit sound from my general vicinity, I walked into the night and began to whistle the tune to Harry Potter- "Du du, du du, du duu, du duu du, duu duuu, duu du, duuu duuu~"

**AN- Well here you have it, Kieran the Fraga. Ain't he a stinker? Now, of my Self Inserts so far, he is probably one of my favourites, mostly because he is more antagonistic and proactive than others in this fic. I wanted to write an utterly non-heroic figure, a powerhungry character who wouldn't hesitate to get more power.**

**Ultimately, Kieran was created from the simple truth of 'why the hell doesn't any self insert abuse their knowledge to get all the powerups you can get?'. Like really, I know _I _would try my best to get as strong as possible, and with proper knowledge any Insert could get shortcuts to power if only they are clever and ruthless enough to claim them. I literally just sat down for ten minutes, wondered on what the top three OP things in the present of the Nasuverse were, concluded 'True Magic, Noble Phantasm's and Dead Apostles' and placed Kieran in a situation where he could obtain all three of them if he worked for it.**

**Just for the record, I am totally setting Kieran up to be the most OP master in Heavens Feels entire history. He will be the 'strongest master' outright. Even so, this doesn't make him a Gary Stu. He genuinely works for his powers, anyone else could have them too if they worked hard, and he has flaws like anyone else. I try to make all my characters humanly imperfect- so while my heroes have negative flaws and mess up, in this case my antagonist isn't some stereotypical villain and is actually capable of forming attachments and morals- he merely chooses to ignore them.**

**So yeah, thanks for reading. Sorry for the long AN but I figured some of you might have found these thoughts interesting. I hope you enjoyed this chapter- I think Hikaru will be covered next, when I get round to writing it (other fics to work on after all). If you have any feedback or criticism, have any questions or just want to leave a like or flame, then feel free. All viewer input is greatly appreciated. Until next time, Undying Soul out.**


	7. Origins: Hikaru I

**Chapter 6- Hikaru I**

**AN- Okay then, here's the next Insert we get to look at, Hikaru. Hopefully this chapter will flesh him out a bit more, and I've tried to set it out a bit differently to the others. Sorry for the long wait- Hikaru was a **_**bitch **_**to write for. On other matters... *Glares at the next Farrin chapter*, I think we'll get Not Rin next, and maybe just **_**maybe **_**Farrin will be ready to... cooperate... with me.**

**Disclaimer: I own very little really. On that list is not the collective work of Kinoku Nasu- horror of horror. **

I dreamt of death. I dreamt of infinitely falling, reliving the same moment _over and over again_. The look of vague surprise in my dads eyes as he pushed, the feeling of dread and the incoming knowledge that I was going to hit the table- the dreadful moment where the large CRACK echoed when I impacted with its side.

Dreaming of my own death was far too regular.

Beyond that horrible, repeating moment, my nightmares always carried me elsewhere. To far away classrooms, where the other children radiated happiness whereas I just felt like something out of place; to the frequent evenings where alcohol clung to dads breath as he shouted as me; to my brothers taunts and jeers.

I welcomed these dreams. They were a reminder. One I would rather forget, but they still existed. They proved that I had lived, that my past life was truly tangible and while painful that there had been some substance and semblance of stability.

Plus, they were better than the _other _dream I had. Some things you cannot forget easily, and while when it comes to death most only think about the living before hand and the hell afterwards, the point in between is just as vivid.

While I hadn't gone to heaven, while I hadn't seen any pearly white gates (Because I didn't expect to go there anyway), there had been a brief moment (A very brief one) between Death and being Reborn again.

For just a few seconds, I had seen the Void. I had seen the point where nothing exists, where colour, sound and smell is unable to exist- I had seen what happens to those who linger and are unable to move on.

And honestly, one is not meant to see the Void and live to tell the tale. Because even after I have left it behind, the Void has followed, dwelling in my memories.

So I dreamt of my own death, and wondered just how I would die in this new life.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was a windy day and the one who birthed me had wrapped me up in a scarf. The woman had seen the perfect chance to take her child out for some fresh air, so had naturally ensured I was attired correctly and led my toddler form hand in hand to the park nearest to our apartment.

I didn't complain, savouring the chance to get out of our cramped living accommodations. The woman held my hand lightly, letting her arm swing regularly and drag mine along with it. Softly she sung under her breath, a lovely tune with lyrics that only had the occasional word I could understand with my primitive understanding of Japanese, directing it to me.

To any other, it was the frequently seen sight of an adoring mother taking her son to the park to play, a woman happily singing and a son eager to play. But if one looks closer, they would see that the tableau we had painted was slightly off-skew, almost uncanny.

Something is wrong with the scene.

There is no father holding the boys (My own) other hand, and the eyes of the woman betray her worry and slight loneliness. The boy himself does not smile, and while comfortable holding the woman's hand he does not display any affection (How could I? She isn't mom, and never will be). His (My own) eyes lack any meaningful emotion- empty.

Even so, the woman carries on singing, until they (We) reach the park. Its empty and lightly rusted, existing in the centre of an urban sprawl and generally being an unwelcome place where most people choose not to go. The roundabout span gently in the wind and the monkey bars were coated in light dew from the Autumn rain earlier this morning.

The boy and the woman were alone. And without the watchful eyes of society watching her, the woman lets go.

I accepted the loss of the hand without question. I appreciated the attention my carer gave me, but I was already far too old to be coddled from my past life. I had no need for a helping hand to lead me through the world, and I personally couldn't give a damn for my caretaker.

She had expected a normal child, someone she could adore and love. She hadn't wanted me to begin with, finding me to be a burden for a woman of her occupation, but fell in love with the _idea _of having a child, bringing a life into this world and raising it. Then she ended up with me, a son who didn't cry or giggle, and only watched quietly with far too sharp eyes.

In the end, the bond between mother and son was meaningless and numb. She desired something that was never there, and lied to herself and the world in order to get some equally pointless illusion of normality. Maybe if she had been around more instead of working all the time, maybe if she had been given a son who couldn't remember all those years of life, and maybe in another world Aiko Kawaguchi would have a meaningful relationship with her son.

Instead, she denied there was anything wrong with us, and merely watched me as I clambered onto the wet roundabout. With a false smile, she came forward and took hold of the rail and spun it.

To any other it was a mother playing with her child. To her it was a desperate sight of normality she needed. For me it was pointless.

XXXXXXXXXX

I was four now, and I sat in front of the small TV in our living room. It was some meaningless children's show, but I didn't care. I was only watching it to absorb the language of this country, and I had already spent enough time to master what I needed to in order to converse with others. This was just to get more practice listening, and to do _something_ to whittle away the boring hours where my minder went out to work.

She worked odd hours, often leaving me all night and coming back to sleep through the day. Sometimes she got phone calls from clients and went out while the sun still shone, while at other times she left only a note when she was suddenly called in to 'attend' to a customer.

Right now, Aiko ate her cereal quickly. Shovelling it in inelegantly, she anxiously watched the clock.

At last, she finished eating and the clock ticked down.

"Okay Hikaru, I'm going now." She said with a smile, strolling over to the sofa I was sat at. She leaned over and kissed my forehead, leaving a deep ruby kiss mark on my skin which I hurriedly wiped off. "Take care and stay out of trouble. Mummy loves you very much."

"Sure." I mumbled at her overly affectionate words. I drew attention away, back to the TV. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Aiko's smile slip, but then the mask was back in place.

Her job had certainly given her experience in putting on a happy face.

With a slam the door to apartment 501 shut. A click afterwards told me that Aiko had locked the door.

I continued to watch for a few more minutes until the programme ended and I was sure she was gone, then I shut down the screen and let out a sigh of relief.

"Finally alone." I said out loud in English, happy to not have to endure the stares of my genetic donor anymore. I didn't love her and she couldn't truly love _me_, so I considered her a roommate more than anything. A highly affectionate one, but only that at best.

A smile came to my face as I checked the clock- it was half one in the afternoon and Aiko wouldn't be back until at least seven. Plenty of time to do what I wanted with the day.

While much of me wished I hadn't died in the first place, this new life had a few perks. The freedom for one thing. While Aiko was gone, I had full control over what and where I go. I didn't have to worry about her hitting me either, nor did I need to worry about any siblings. I swore that if Aiko ever let herself get knocked up again, I would be the _worst _brother I could be, purely out of spite.

I didn't need another false, empty relationship- though since I don't think I've ever really had the emptiness filled since my original mom, this lack of anything was better.

Whistling to myself, I took out my only coat from the cupboard, wrapped round a scarf and went to the loose floorboard under Aiko's bed. In a small shoe box there was a spare key to the room, one I had borrowed from the receptionist after I put on a tantrum about being unable to get into my room when 'mummy' was gone and never given back.

This was the metaphorical key to the city- with this I could go anywhere.

I went to check my appearance in the full-sized mirror hung on the wall next to the door: greyish blue eyes reflected back at me in the surface, while my unruly, blue hair was at the very least presentable (I had long since stopped questioning how I could have such a shade naturally). Clothing wise I looked good enough to blend in, so with a smile I slipped out the front door, checked the corridor carefully and relocked up. I began walking, already knowing where I would go.

XXXXXXXXXX

My favourite place in Fuyuki, the city I grew up in, was the library. I lived in the Shinto district of the Japanese town, a tall industrial landscape of glass towers, modern buildings and expansive apartment complexes. Much of Shinto was still being built, but it was already crowded, and the library was in perfectly good condition.

I had discovered it early on in my explorations of the city, back when everything was new and alien and I had to be extremely diligent to ensure that someone wouldn't take advantage of a three year old alone in the city.

Now I was experienced in navigating the area and staying out of attention, so I walked the quickest path to the building.

Once inside the modern facilities, the librarian greeted me with a quiet greeting laced with affection- Miss Satonaka was a very kind lady despite her old age, who asked no questions about why I was here alone and endeavoured to let me read in peace (Though she sometimes placed a cup of hot chocolate on the table next to me with an exaggerated shush, blatantly ignoring her 'no food or drinks' rule and almost bringing a true smile to my face).

"Hi." I said softly.

"Afternoon young Hikaru." She smiled. "Here to read again."

"Yes." I answered after a moments pause. "I... like it here."

"I'm glad to see you young'n's can still enjoy a good book." She told me, ruffling my hair, to my irritation.

I thanked her once more and went to my favourite seat, collecting a bunch of books as I did so.

Typically when I come to the Shinto Library, I read primarily low level Japanese stories. The character system and writing of the Japanese was very different to English, and it was a struggle to adapt, so I had to constantly work to try and make any progress in deciphering the texts in front of me.

But for when I am so bored and unwilling to put anymore time into trying to learn Japanese, I have a quick visit to the extremely small English selection of the building and hide the book between the oversized pages of one of the other kids books. So long as I'm careful, I can read things far above my apparent reading ability (Admittedly from a very small selection pool), which does wonders for ensuring I don't go mad from boredom.

Once it was closing time, I unfortunately said goodbye to my reprise from boredom and accepted that it was time to back to the apartment before Aiko gets back.

Branching away from the main crowds still bustling through the city going from Point A to Point B, I cut off to a quieter, more solitary street. I liked the quiet, so a nice walk was always nice. I looked forwards to when I was old enough to get away with leaving the house without needing to sneak away.

As I walked down the darkening street, I couldn't help but feel like I was being watched. I stopped and looked round me, but didn't see anyone stalking me or anything like that. I was practically alone, and was undoubtedly just imagining it, but I could still feel my hair on stand end- as if I had goosebumps.

I narrowed my eyes and looked closer, but instead of looking up as I normally have to now due to being so small compared to before, I looked down, at the ground. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I kept searching. Eventually my eyes landed on a nearby alleyway, and I could almost feel that the watching presence was coming from it.

All common sense would tell anyone to run away from dark, lonely alleyways when nobody knows where you are, but I wasn't normal. I was always lacking something, and in this case I lacked knowledge.

Nothing interesting ever happens, so in a lot of ways I just wanted to know what was watching me.

I walked slowly into the alley, not seeing any homeless people or otherwise claiming this place their own. As I entered the goosebumps increased in intensity, and I knew I was on track. I followed it to a dumpster, and looked underneath it.

I came face to face with the ugliest sonnuva-bitch worm I had ever seen.

Ugly and bloated, it was a sickly green and grey colour and had- were those _teeth_?

I flinched back as it snapped at my face half heartedly and writhed away, wriggling its tail to move away.

I took a few steps away in surprise. I was just being stupid- I wasn't being watched at all by anyone, since I could hardly be watched by an eyeless mutated worm. Yes the worm was weird as hell, but a classmate in my first life had once shown me a few pics of some way more mutated creatures than that- like goats with two heads or pigs with extra toes or legs.

Even so, I hoped that the thing wasn't capable of breeding. It was large, intimidating as hell, and those teeth looked killer. I definitely didn't want to ever see another one again.

XXXXXXXXXX

I was unlucky, or perhaps wrong. It looked like the fucking things could breed and was becoming an infestation, because they seemed to be _everywhere _after that day.

Whenever I went outside, I couldn't immediately see them, but they were always somewhere along the way. Over the last year I had gotten pretty good at using my goosebumps to find them, and I could definitely tell that they were growing daily.

I seemed to be the only one notice them though. When I pointed one out to Aiko after she had finally gotten some free time and decided to try and capture the feeling of being a mother again by taking me to the park again, she seemed surprised to see such an ugly monster, had squashed it beneath her high heel with a 'Squelch', and announced that she had never seen anything like it, and didn't _want _to see it again.

"A worm shouldn't be able to grow teeth." She had said, wiping her messy heel against a step to remove the worst of the squelched carcass.

So I had concluded that even without eyes they were watching me- I saw too many around to be a coincidence. Even so, I was still lacking in knowledge of what and why they were there, and I couldn't do anything about them either, so I just ignored them as best I could and decided that I should at least be glad they weren't hostile.

Though when I saw one had gotten into the apartment, I must admit that I freaked out and squashed the thing with a frying pan and had thrown it over the balcony.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was shortly after my fifth birthday that life changed again for me. My carer left late at night to go about doing her 'night-time job', and I went to sleep expecting her back the next day tired, exhausted and aching.

The next day she didn't return. Not in the morning to slump off her to bed. Not after lunch, to quickly get a shower. Not before bed either, to say goodnight to me. After another day of no contact and no sight of her, I realised I couldn't put it off any longer.

Aiko was not a woman to leave a child alone for two days, no matter how much we disagreed. So there was only one explanation for her absence- that something had happened to her.

I refused to accept that she might have abandoned me.

"Hello? Is this the police." I asked childishly after dialling 110, the Japanese police number. "My mom hasn't come home yet, and she's been gone two days. Can you help me please?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Its amazing how quickly the authorities care once a child is in danger and alone. They picked me up promptly and took me to the station, the officer in the car reassuring me with vague pleasantries like "I'm sure she's fine," and "We'll look after you,", or comments like "We'll get you some hot chocolate once we get there. Doesn't that sound good, huh?".

Time passed, and after confirming my story I was sent elsewhere. After a week of no sight or contact from my mom, they were just about to declare her 'missing' when news was drawn in.

She was dead. Aiko Kawaguchi, my genetic mother, the woman who had desperately wanted a normal child to love but had only gotten me, was now dead. having officially been discovered in the sewers beneath the city by a passing cleaner.

I didn't know how to feel about this.

She was dead. Dead dead deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead...

And the worst thing was that I couldn't even bring up the energy to care that she was gone, only wonder where this left me.

"What happens to me now?" I asked the man that had first brought me in after I rang the police, Dojima, once he had finished explaining that she was dead.

"I'm sorry kiddo, but we'll have to put you into care for now." Dojima apologised, rubbing my hair in an overly affectionate way that I _detested _but stomached through out of convenience. "No other family, right? This is the only option for you now."

"Will there be a funeral? How did she die anyway?"

The man paled. "You don't need to know how she died. It wasn't... pleasant. We had to identify her through her dental records." A wince. "As for a funeral, not really enough money for it, but she's being buried in a week. I'll take you to say goodbye if you want, before you're sent off."

"Hmmm." I nodded half heartedly. "Okay."

He ruffled my hair once more. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I'll see you in a week."

XXXXXXXXXX

The day of the funeral was a cold one- I wrapped up warm and ventured with the policeman to the graveyard her coffin would be lowered into, by request in her will. The two of us were the only one to see her off, and I could only watch numbly as coffin was dropped in and I tossed a handful of dirt onto the cheap wooden structure.

"Can I have a moment?" I asked, and was finally left blissfully alone by the grave. "I don't know what to say." I told her, mostly just wanting to get the thoughts out my head. "I never loved you, and you didn't really love _me_, but even so... I don't like this void. The absence. I can't help it that even if I never wanted a bond with you, the absence of you is somehow worse. I guess that I'll remember you, like I remember my old dad, mom and brother. I won't forget you. So goodbye."

I turned away from the gravestone, resolute in the loss of another thing. I was alone now- perhaps it was better this way.

"Hikaru!" Came my watchers jubilant cry. He approached with a grin and spoke as if he had come baring the secrets of life rather than just a message. "You won't have to go into care after all! I didn't want to give you any false hope, but we tracked down your family via your fathers side."

"My fathers side?" I asked in confusion. My new 'dad' had never appeared in my life, never making a single appearance, so I assumed he was just another customer of Aiko's and put no more thought into it. "Family?"

"Yes. We managed to find your father."

I blinked in surprise. "Oh."

"We didn't know if he was going to take care of you with your mother dead, but I just got a phone call now. He said yes- and your grandfather is coming here now to pick you up."

I was being collected already? I felt a little like an old suitcase- worn, well used and passed about to whoever. "What if I don't want to go with him?"

Dojima's smile became strained. "Look, kiddo. Its either him or you go into care."

So my only option was to be eventually taken in by one stranger or another? "I suppose it doesn't matter just who I end up with then." I concluded. "Okay. When will he be here."

"In about half an hour." Dojima responded. "Rather fast, but I guess your new family wants to meet you quickly, huh?"

"Yeah." I agreed half heartedly. Family didn't really mean much to me.

We waited in silence (Mostly- aside for Dojima trying to force pleasant conversation onto me), until eventually the sound of footsteps resounded through the solemn graveyard, along with a clacking sound, like something was regularly tapping against the surface of the floor.

I shuddered, suddenly feeling colder than I already was, and rubbed my covered arms to try and remove the goosebumps that had emerged beneath my coat. I knew, understanding it instantly. "He's here." I said confidently, turning to the direction of the footsteps.

My first impression of my grandfather: rotten. Wrinkled skin like discarded fruit, hollow cheeks which resembled a skeletons and empty, black eyes that looked down on everything like a spider about to swallow a fly whole. He wasn't fragile. No, that would never be a word to describe my grandfather. Even though he looked frail and needed a walking stick to hobble up the path, he certainly wasn't weak in his old age. Just by watching him I could sense something was different about him- that he was something to be wary of and fear.

"Good afternoon, Hikaru." He greeted with a cloyingly sweet tone that was so unlike the aura he projected that I knew it was fake. "I am your grandfather. Now, how would you like to to come home with me, little boy?" The ancient man took one hand from him aged staff and offered the withered, bony appendage to my small body to clutch.

I looked the rotting man in the eye and saw the calculated look in it. I smelled the masked scent of decay and listened to the warning bells ringing in my mind and telling me to run away quickly. _Because if you don't run now, he'll never let you go. Trapped in an endless maze of web, strung up and struggling with zero chance to escape. _I felt the cold drowning my body and the emptiness in my heart, and I already knew the answer.

"Okay then." I had no other option anyway, since I doubted I would ever be taken out of the care system, and even if he was dangerous he offered a rood over my head, food for my stomach and a home that couldn't be worse than the ones that it had followed.

Slowly I reached out to the hand and grabbed it, touching dead skin as the fingers closed around my own in a vice grip, sealing the deal. "Welcome to the family then, _Matou _Hikaru." said the spider to the fly as it agreed to willingly enter into its parlour.

**AN- I said this before, but this was a _pain _to finish. Even now that its ended on a semi apt note, I can't help but see the shortness of it compared to other chapters. Oh well, his next chapter will be a long one then, and with the early childhood out the way I can get into the good stuff quickly.**

**Ahh. The good stuff. Hikaru is definitely one of the most messed up member of my cast of Self Inserts. I have tried to make all my OC's human and flawed, doubly so for Hikaru. He and Kieran are the closest this story has to antagonistic villains, and even then they have their good points and reasons for why they do things. Hikaru by the end of his backstory will be the most flat out Chaotic Evil of the group- though perhaps Chaotic Neutral is more accurate.**

**Hikaru represents how loads of Self Inserts always have some sort of troubled 'traumatic' upbringing, only I wanted to to genuinely explore how coming from such a messed up family would effect a guy. Hikaru also lets me play around with Origins a bit more, and once he begins Magus training and his Origin and Element are found its obvious why he acts the way he does and how his actions draw back to that Origin. As for powers... Hikaru has the potential to be one of the toughest of the group, having powers that have ties to one of the Five True Magics (Yes- those things) in a loose sense, though unlike Rin or Sakura he has no ties to the Second or the Third... if Hikaru took on a role similar to Dark Sakura, he'd probably kick Dark Sakura's ass and would be way more successful. **

**Now then, thanks for reading. Expect Rin or Archer to make an appearance next, and maybe a Farrin chapter after that because he'll be having one of the longer back stories. Feel free to leave a review or some feedback if you have anything to add- time to do schoolwork, because I _love _A Levels, and maybe finish off that Survivor chapter... Undying Soul out.**


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